DocumentCode :
2084457
Title :
Novel method for quantitative assessment of physical workload of healthcare workers by a tetherless ergonomics workstation
Author :
Smith, W.D. ; Alharbi, K.A. ; Dixon, J.B. ; Reggad, H.
Author_Institution :
Electr. & Electron. Eng. Dept., California State Univ., Sacramento, Sacramento, CA, USA
fYear :
2012
fDate :
Aug. 28 2012-Sept. 1 2012
Firstpage :
1570
Lastpage :
1573
Abstract :
Healthcare workers are at risk of physical injury. Our laboratory has developed a tetherless ergonomics workstation that is suitable for studying physicians´ and nurses´ physical workloads in clinical settings. The workstation uses wearable sensors to record multiple channels of body orientation and muscle activity and wirelessly transmits them to a base station laptop computer for display, storage, and analysis. The ergonomics workstation generates long records of multi-channel data, so it is desired that the workstation automatically process these records and provide graphical and quantitative summaries of the physical workloads experienced by the healthcare workers. This paper describes a novel method of automated quantitative assessment of physical workload, termed joint cumulative amplitude-duration (JCAD) analysis, that has advantages over previous methods and illustrates its use in a comparison of the physical workloads of robotically-assisted surgery versus manual video-endoscopic surgery.
Keywords :
biomechanics; body sensor networks; electromyography; endoscopes; ergonomics; health care; injuries; laptop computers; medical robotics; medical signal processing; surgery; telemedicine; workstations; EMG; automated quantitative assessment; base station laptop computer; body orientation; graphical summaries; healthcare workers; joint cumulative amplitude-duration analysis; manual video-endoscopic surgery; multiple channel recording; muscle activity; nurses; physical injury; physical workload; physicians; quantitative summaries; robotically-assisted surgery; tetherless ergonomics workstation; wearable sensors; Educational institutions; Electromyography; Ergonomics; Muscles; Robots; Surgery; Workstations; Algorithms; Electromyography; Female; Health Personnel; Human Engineering; Humans; Male; Models, Theoretical; Motor Activity; Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; Surgery, Computer-Assisted; Video Recording; Workload;
fLanguage :
English
Publisher :
ieee
Conference_Titel :
Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2012 Annual International Conference of the IEEE
Conference_Location :
San Diego, CA
ISSN :
1557-170X
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4244-4119-8
Electronic_ISBN :
1557-170X
Type :
conf
DOI :
10.1109/EMBC.2012.6346243
Filename :
6346243
Link To Document :
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