Wearable Monitoring of Seated Spinal Posture

• Published in: IEEE transactions on biomedical circuits and systems Vol. 2; no. 2; pp. 97 - 105
• Main Authors: Dunne, L.E., Walsh, P., Hermann, S., Smyth, B., Caulfield, B.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States IEEE 01.06.2008; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Biological control systems; Biomedical monitoring; Computerized monitoring; Kinematics; Musculoskeletal system; Optical fibers; Optical recording; Posture; Textiles; Wearable sensors; wearable technology
• ISSN: 1932-4545; 1940-9990
• DOI: 10.1109/TBCAS.2008.927246

This work describes the evaluation of a wearable plastic optical fiber (POF) sensor for monitoring seated spinal posture, as compared to a conventional expert visual analysis, and the development of a field-deployable posture monitoring system. A garment-integrated POF sensor was developed and tested on nine healthy subjects. Data from the wearable sensor were compared to data taken simultaneously from a marker-based motion capture system, for accuracy and reliability. Peak analysis of the resulting data showed a mean time error of 0.53 plusmn 0.8 s, and a mean value error of 0.64 plusmn 3.1 deg, which represents 14.5% of the average range of motion. Expert determination of transitional (good to bad) posture showed a variation of 20.9% of range of motion. These results indicate that the wearable sensor approximates the accuracy of expert visual analysis, and provides sufficient accuracy of measurement to reliably monitor seated spinal posture.