Menrva Research Group, Schools of Mechatronic Systems & Engineering Science, Simon Fraser University, Metro Vancouver, BC V5A 1S6, Canada.
Biomedical and Mobile Health Technology Lab, Department of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zurich, Lengghalde 5, 8008 Zurich, Switzerland.
Sensors (Basel). 2021 Oct 28;21(21):7158. doi: 10.3390/s21217158.
The activities performed by nurses in their daily activities involve frequent forward bending and awkward back postures. These movements contribute to the prevalence and development of low back pain (LBP). In previous studies, it has been shown that modifying their posture by education and training in proper lifting techniques decreases the prevalence of LBP. However, this education and training needs to be implemented daily. Hence, implementing the use of a wearable device to monitor the back posture with haptic feedback would be of importance to prevent LBP. This paper proposes a wearable device to monitor the back posture of the user and provide feedback when the participant is performing a possible hurtful movement. In this study, a group of participants was asked to wear the device while performing three of the most common activities performed by nurses. The study was divided into three sessions: In the first session, the participants performed the activities without feedback (baseline). During the second session, the participants received feedback from the wearable device (training) while performing the three tasks. Finally, for the third session, the participants performed the three tasks again, but the haptic feedback was turned off (validation). We found an improvement in the posture of more than 40% for the pitch (lateral bending) and roll (forward/backward bending) axes and 7% for the yaw (twisting) axis when comparing to the results from session 1 and session 2. The comparison between session 1 and session 3 showed an overall improvement of more than 50% for the pitch (lateral bending) and roll (forward/backward bending) axes and more than 20% for the yaw axis. These results hinted at the impact of the haptic feedback on the participants to correct their posture.
护士在日常活动中进行的活动涉及频繁的前屈和别扭的后倾姿势。这些动作导致腰痛（LBP）的普遍发生和发展。在之前的研究中，已经表明通过教育和培训适当的提升技术来改变姿势，可以降低 LBP 的发生率。然而，这种教育和培训需要每天实施。因此，实施使用可穿戴设备来监测背部姿势并提供触觉反馈以预防 LBP 非常重要。本文提出了一种可穿戴设备，用于监测用户的背部姿势，并在参与者进行可能有害的运动时提供反馈。在这项研究中，要求一组参与者在进行护士最常进行的三项活动时佩戴该设备。该研究分为三个阶段：在第一阶段，参与者在没有反馈的情况下进行活动（基线）。在第二阶段，参与者在执行三个任务时从可穿戴设备获得反馈（培训）。最后，在第三阶段，参与者再次执行三个任务，但关闭了触觉反馈（验证）。我们发现，与第一阶段和第二阶段的结果相比，俯仰（侧屈）和滚转（前/后屈）轴的姿势改善了 40%以上，偏航（扭转）轴的姿势改善了 7%。与第一阶段相比，第三阶段的总体改善超过了 50%，俯仰（侧屈）和滚转（前/后屈）轴，偏航轴超过 20%。这些结果表明触觉反馈对参与者纠正姿势的影响。
