Effects of Manual Material Handling Workload on Measures of Fall Risk

Supporting patients' workload through wearable devices and mobile health applications, a systematic literature review

Patients face a challenging workload in their course of care. In this study, we investigate the impact of using mobile health technologies in supporting this workload and identify the system challenges of its application through a systematic review of the literature published in the last two decades following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis Reviews and Meta-Analysis guidelines PRISMA guidelines. Twenty-two studies that satisfied the inclusion criteria were included. The review revealed various mobile health and wearable devices used to support mental demand, physical demand, frustration, and performance. Better outcomes were related to mobile health use in healthcare for patients in different settings. There were no applications of health that supported the temporal demand of patients. Some populations, such as cancer patients, need more than only physical demand. Mhealth devices are important in supporting the patients' workload in their daily activities and clinical settings.Practitioner summary: This review study shows the importance of mHealth and wearables in supporting patients' workload (physical, mental, emotional) but not the temporal load.

Effect of wearable chair on gait, balance, and discomfort of new users during level walking with anterior loads

INTRODUCTION

Walking with anterior loads is common in industrial scenarios, but as exoskeletons are increasingly used in work environments to alleviate musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), this new "human-robot" system composed of the human body and exoskeleton may be associated with new risks and harm that warrant further investigation. Therefore, this study will discuss the effect of a wearable chair on the gait, balance, and discomfort of new users with different weights of anterior loads during level walking.

METHOD

Twenty-two healthy subjects (sex balanced) participated in the experiment. Each exposure comprised one of two exoskeleton states (with/without) and four load conditions: No carried load, carrying an empty box (0.3 kg), 5%Body Weight (BW), and 10%BW. The order of exoskeleton states and load conditions was randomly assigned. Using an eight-camera motion capture system to record the entire movement. And the subjective discomfort and perceived balance after each exposure were recorded on an 11-point numeric rating scale, respectively. Using SPSS 26.0 software (IBM Inc., Chicago) to conduct statistical analyses.

RESULTS

Level walking with a wearable chair in different load conditions significantly affected gait parameters (like cadence) and gait balance. The perceived balance decreased with the exoskeleton, consistent with objective results. For subjective discomfort, wearing the exoskeleton significantly impacted global discomfort. Also, it increased the local discomfort of the shoulders, waist, thighs, shanks, and feet/ankles.

CONCLUSIONS

For new users, the risk of losing balance or falling may be increased when wearing an exoskeleton for non-target task behaviors (level walking/anterior load), and caution is recommended when the anterior load exceeds 5% BW.

PRACTICAL APPLICATION

The proposed strategy for assessing human gait, balance, and discomfort in wearable chairs may be applied during the iterative design of the product. These controls will help develop training programs and implementation guidelines for this exoskeleton type.