Wearable Lumbar-Motion Monitoring Device with Stretchable Strain Sensors

Low-back pain is a common affliction. Epidemiological analyses have reported that periodic cycles of lumbar flexion and rotation are major risk factors for low-back pain. To prevent low-back pain, a lumbar-motion monitoring device could help diagnosticians assess patients’ risk for low-back pain. Th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of sensors 2018-01, Vol.2018 (2018), p.1-7
Main Authors: Ono, Rei, Bessho, Yusuke, Ootaka, Hideo, Yamamoto, Akio, Yamaji, Tokiya, Nakamoto, Hiroyuki, Kobayashi, Futoshi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Back pain
Biomechanics
Carbon
Epidemiology
Ergonomics
Feasibility studies
Monitoring
Motion capture
Pain
Rapid prototyping
Risk analysis
Rotation
Sensors
Spinal manipulation
Vertebrae
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Summary:Low-back pain is a common affliction. Epidemiological analyses have reported that periodic cycles of lumbar flexion and rotation are major risk factors for low-back pain. To prevent low-back pain, a lumbar-motion monitoring device could help diagnosticians assess patients’ risk for low-back pain. This study proposes such a device that uses lightweight stretchable strain sensors. Six of these strain sensors form a parallel-sensor mechanism that measures rotation angles of lumbar motion in three axes. The parallel-sensor mechanism calculates rotation angles from the lengths of the strain sensors iteratively. Experimental results reveal that the prototype device is effective for lumbar-motion measurement and significantly improves in terms of wearability over comparable devices.
ISSN:1687-725X
1687-7268
DOI:10.1155/2018/7480528