Patent ID: 8621684

Claim:
A transfer assist apparatus that assists a care-receiver transfer, comprising: a movable carriage unit; an arm unit that includes a base end attached to the carriage unit and that rotates in a horizontal plane and tilted; a body holding device that is attached to the arm unit; a drive unit that drives the carriage unit and the arm unit; an operation unit into which a trajectory of the body holding device is inputted by a manual operation; and an anxiety measurement unit that detects a physical change in the body of the care-receiver, the physical change being indicative of the care-receiver's degree of anxiety; and a control unit that controls the drive unit according to the trajectory inputted by the operation unit and performs feedback control so as to reduce the care-receiver's state of anxiety, wherein the anxiety measurement unit determines an increase in anxiety when at least one of the following physical changes in the body of the care-receiver occurs: an increase in heart rate, an increase in an amount of perspiration, an increase in a breathing rate, a change in an eyeball movement pattern, a decrease in an electric resistance of the skin of a care-receiver, and a decrease in skin temperature, and wherein the movement speed of the holding device is restricted correspondingly to the degree of anxiety in the care-receiver that is measured by the anxiety measurement unit.