A Wearable Sensor-Based Platform for Surgeon Posture Monitoring: A Tool to Prevent Musculoskeletal Disorders

Abstract

Surgeons are workers that are particularly prone to the development of musculoskeletal disorders. Recent advances in surgical interventions, such as laparoscopic procedures, have caused a worsening of the scenario, given the harmful static postures that have to be kept for long periods. In this paper, we present a sensor-based platform specifically aimed at monitoring the posture during actual surgical operations. The proposed system adopts a limited number of Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) to obtain information about spine and neck angles across time. Such a system merges the reliability of sensor-based approaches and the validity of state-of-the-art scoring procedure, such as RULA. Specifically, three IMUs are used to estimate the flexion, lateral bending, and twisting angles of spine and neck. An ergonomic risk index is thus estimated in a time varying fashion borrowing relevant features from the RULA scoring system. The detailed functioning of the proposed systems is introduced, and the assessment results related to a real surgical procedure, consisting of a laparoscopy and mini-laparotomy sections, are shown and discussed. In the exemplary case study introduced, the surgeon kept a high score, indicating the need for an intervention on the working procedures, for a large time fraction. The system allows separately analyzing the contribution of spine and neck, also specifying the angle configuration. It is shown how the proposed approach can provide further information, as related to dynamical analysis, which could be used to enlarge the features taken into account by currently available approaches for ergonomic risk assessment. The proposed system could be adopted both for training purposes, as well as for alerting surgeons during actual surgical operations.

Evidence for the Effectiveness of Feedback from Wearable Inertial Sensors during Work-Related Activities: A Scoping Review

“…A total of 53 studies were excluded in full-text screening as follows: WIST studies without feedback ( n = 14) [ 55 , 81 , 82 , 83 , 84 , 85 , 86 , 87 , 88 , 89 , 90 , 91 , 92 , 93 ]; feedback without an inertial sensor (s) [ 94 ]; sensors integrated into equipment ( n = 5), e.g., seat sensors and robotic devices rather than those worn by an individual [ 95 , 96 , 97 , 98 , 99 ]; standing balance and/or lower body sway ( n = 5) [ 100 , 101 , 102 , 103 , 104 ]; abstracts ( n = 7) [ 105 , 106 , 107 , 108 , 109 , 110 , 111 ]; stroke/other neurological rehabilitation studies ( n = 4) [ 112 , 113 , 114 , 115 ]; a non-work setting ( n = 3) [ 116 , 117 , 118 ]; no evaluation of WIST feedback effectiveness ( n = 6) [ 119 , 120 , 121 , 122 , 123 , 124 ]; research proposal ( n = 1) [ 125 ]; and validity and reliability s...…”

Continuous ergonomic risk perception for manual assembly operations using wearable multi-sensor posture estimation

“…These methods can record body posture with minimum disturbance by the attached optical, sonic or electromagnetic sensor (Li and Buckle, 1999). A body sensor composed of inertial units was developed for ergonomic analysis (Vignais et al , 2013; Tee et al , 2017; Caputo et al , 2018; Carbonaro, 2021) and given posture perceptions derived from these inertial sensors, the ergonomic assessments were implemented to permit a global risk assessment of WMSDs in real-time. But the postural perception of the inertial sensor is derived based on time integration from the acceleration and angular velocity, which is prone to drift because of the error accumulation.…”

A Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders (WMSDs) Risk-Assessment System Using a Single-View Pose Estimation Model

“…As sensors and image-processing technology have advanced substantially, many studies have been conducted to improve visual measurement methods quantitatively [ 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 ]. In one of these methods, wireless Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) sensors can be attached to the worker’s body to obtain movement data [ 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 26 ].…”

“…As sensors and image-processing technology have advanced substantially, many studies have been conducted to improve visual measurement methods quantitatively [ 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 ]. In one of these methods, wireless Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) sensors can be attached to the worker’s body to obtain movement data [ 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 26 ]. However, wearable devices are inconvenient because they must be worn by workers in all processes that require assessments [ 14 , 29 ], and a calibration procedure for the sensors is needed to maintain the accuracy [ 10 , 13 , 18 , 19 ].…”

“…In one of these methods, wireless Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) sensors can be attached to the worker’s body to obtain movement data [ 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 26 ]. However, wearable devices are inconvenient because they must be worn by workers in all processes that require assessments [ 14 , 29 ], and a calibration procedure for the sensors is needed to maintain the accuracy [ 10 , 13 , 18 , 19 ].…”