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

Nicola Carbonaro, Gabriele Mascherini, Ilenia Bartolini, Maria Novella Ringressi, Antonio Taddei, Alessandro Tognetti and Nicola Vanello
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Nicola Carbonaro: Department of Information Engineering, University of Pisa, 56122 Pisa, Italy
Gabriele Mascherini: Department of Experimental and Clinical Medicine, University of the Study of Florence, 50121 Florence, Italy
Ilenia Bartolini: Department of Experimental and Clinical Medicine, University of the Study of Florence, 50121 Florence, Italy
Maria Novella Ringressi: Department of Experimental and Clinical Medicine, University of the Study of Florence, 50121 Florence, Italy
Antonio Taddei: Department of Experimental and Clinical Medicine, University of the Study of Florence, 50121 Florence, Italy
Alessandro Tognetti: Department of Information Engineering, University of Pisa, 56122 Pisa, Italy
Nicola Vanello: Department of Information Engineering, University of Pisa, 56122 Pisa, Italy

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 7, 1-15

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.

Keywords: ergonomic risk; IMU; musculoskeletal disease; RULA approach; spine posture; surgeon posture; wearable sensor (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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