Welcome to the special issue on anthropometry! This discussion will cover a range of differently sized topics to fit your interests. De Bruin and Castelluci discuss the problems of designing school ...furniture that fits students, noting that “Regarding School furniture dimensions, students are usually exposed to furniture with fixed dimensions, which makes it almost impossible to adjust to the ‘growing’ anthropometrics along their school life and neither does it accommodate multidimensional fit very well.” Griffin et al. discuss developing an “understanding of body dimensions in relation to how a body functions, moves, and changes” that “is fundamental to creating compatible wearable products” for aging women. Alemany et al. discuss 4D scanning, observing that “This technology is able to capture the human body surface in motion at high frequency with a high resolution” and offers “an enormous potential to advance in ergonomic design and biomechanics.” Bradtmiller describes the “nearly infinite combination of head/facial characteristics” and that “This combination of traits allows us to recognize unique individuals but increases the challenge of designing head and face products that fit a wide variety of individuals with a relatively small number of sizes.”
Grip strength is an essential component of physical fitness. The objective of this study was to develop normative handgrip strength data for Iranian healthy boys and girls comparing their handgrip ...strength with international reference values.
Handgrip strength was measured in 2637 healthy children/adolescents (1391 boys and 1246 girls), aged 7-18 years, using a standard adjustable Jamar hand dynamometer (Model 5030 J1, Sammons Preston Rolyan, Bolingbrook, IL, USA). Body mass (kg) and stature (cm) were measured and body mass index was computed in kg/m
. The sample was stratified by gender, age, and hand preference.
Handgrip strength increased with age and was considerably higher in boys than in girls for all age groups (p < 0.001). Grip strength had a parallel and linear growth for both genders until the age of about 11 years and showed a steeper upward slope in boys than in girls thereafter. The findings of the current investigation were significantly different from those of the previously published normative data, especially for boys over the age of 12 years and girls in the age range of 7-18 years (p < 0.001). This difference was mainly in such a way that the Iranians had lower handgrip strength.
The differences between present results and those of similar available in the literature in this field emphasize the significant role of using normative data specific to a particular population in research or clinical settings.
The Quick Exposure Check (QEC) assesses four major body parts and engages users in assessing some physical interactions relevant to design in task analysis.
In this paper, we investigated the ...application of QEC as the ergonomic intervention to detect pre-production ergonomic design faults in the apple sorting machine by applying physical and virtual prototyping for three different tasks analysis divided into two phases (Task 1: Apple harvesting and preparation for sorting; Task 2: Sorting control and separation of waste fruits; Task 3: Transfer of separated apples).
First, the QEC questionnaire was administered while Iranian participants interacted with the machine to detect abnormal posture. Second, we redesigned a concept of the machine and assessed it with QEC by a focus group.
Before design, the high pressure in Task 1 is on the back (dynamic), shoulder/arm, and very high pressure in Task 2, and in Task 3 on the back (static), arm/shoulder/neck, making an uncomfortable situation for posture. After redesign, we observed decreased pressures on the back/shoulder/arm in Task 1 from high to medium, in Task 3 from very high to low, and also in Task 2, this was detectable decreasing from very high pressures on the back/shoulder/arm and the high pressures on the neck to medium.
Prototyping with QEC demonstrated that accurate redesigning of the machine with concentration on shifting from static tasks to dynamic or conversely, and ease of access by adjusting dimensions according to anthropometry and auxiliary products, could reduce musculoskeletal disorders.
3D anthropometry has created a significant opportunity for designers to improve fit by offering detailed information regarding the shape of the human body. Various researchers have shown the benefit ...of using 3D anthropometric data in the development or evaluation of head related products for adults. However, detailed 3D anthropometric data of children heads and faces is still lacking. This paper presents up to date descriptive statistics of detailed measurements made of heads and faces of Dutch children. For the purpose of developing ergonomic head and face wear for children, an anthropometric survey was conducted, whereby children aged 6 months to 7 years were measured, utilising both traditional anthropometric measurement techniques and 3D image derived measurements. The traditional measurements were compared with the most recent dataset of Dutch children and, on a more detailed level, with a dataset of North American children.
•Up to date descriptive statistics of detailed measurements made of heads and faces of Dutch children for product design.•3D photogrammetry offers an efficient way to scan babies and young children in order to collect anthropometric data.•The 3D dataset can be referenced for different (design) purposes and to study face and head shapes of children.
Anthropometry is critical for product and workplace design. Highly prevalent, office work is associated with sedentarism and physical discomfort due to prolonged sitting. Dynamic seating (alternating ...across sitting, perching, and standing) has been suggested as an alternative to overcome those problems. The current study tested a large sample of anthropometric data for mismatch levels against national and international office furniture standards using dynamic seating as a framework with traditional and perching mismatch equations, applied to three recommended dynamic seating components. Dimensions present in the standards used did not match the majority of the sample. For sitting, seat width and depth individually presented the lowest levels of match, as well as under cumulative fit of all office furniture dimensions. However, these were alleviated when incorporating adjustability. Perching was shown to be generally impeded given commercially-available chair height options. Limitations in state-of-the-art perching equations are discussed, and two new models are proposed as design alternatives. Further research should focus on testing the criteria presented in this research through discomfort and objective measures.
•Office furniture dimensions did not match the sample anthropometrics.•Adjustability significantly increased cumulative fit while sitting traditionally.•Dynamic seating although recommended is hard to achieve with some configurations.•Perching presented the hardest challenge to match within dynamic seating.•Equations proposed should be tested for subjective and objective measures.
Anthropometry has been used extensively for designing safe and sustainable products and workplaces. However, it is common that designers need straightforward guidelines and dimensions, which they ...often lack, for specific design situations. Anthropometric data are usually presented in tables that summarize percentile values, separated by gender, of a specific population, which makes it difficult for designers to generate applications for mixed populations, such as industrial settings. Using a recently collected anthropometric database of Chilean workers (male and female), international standards of dimensions for working height, depth, and ideal manual handling height are tested with univariate and bivariate methods. Alternative dimensions are presented for both adjustable and non-adjustable designs. Additionally, procedures to combine samples, and for knowing how many users match with a particular design are explained using the sample data. As expected, adjustable designs proved to match with higher numbers of users, while non-adjustable dimensions recommended by ISO presented low levels of matching. Furthermore, the non-adjustable design achieved 83% of matching, which increased to the desired levels (90%) with the inclusion of a 50 mm increase platform. Finally, the Z-Score equation proved to be a useful tool to know the percentages of the population that are matched with a particular design dimension.
Dimensions for working height, depth, and ideal manual handling heights, which are currently not available, are provided for Chilean workers. A method to determine the matching percentage in a population is explained, in order to assess matching probabilities when having only summarized anthropometric tables and the dimensions for the design itself.
•The designs presented for industrial settings are the first to address Chilean workers.•Working heights and depths coupled with ideal manual handling heights are presented.•The ISO not adjustable working heights recommendations presented low levels of match.•A procedure to calculate the % of match is presented for cases when limited data is available.
The world is ageing rapidly. Between 2000 and 2050, the number of people aged ≥65 will double as a proportion of the global population, from 7% to 16%, respectively. By 2050, for the first time in ...human history, there will be more older people than children (aged 0–14 years) in the population. More distinctive is the tremendous increase in the oldest old aged ≥85. This challenges society to adapt, in order to maximise the health and functional capacity of older people as well as their social participation and security.
Ageing is a multidimensional process of change in the physical, mental and social domain, leading to functional decline.
Design thinking has embraced ageing as a topic where it can add to public health interventions. Applications of design and technology can contribute to ‘autonomous ageing’, for example, independent living and life style support, and can compensate for functional deficits associated with ageing. The focus is on supporting and reinforcing the reduced physical, mental, social and functional capacities of older people by applying groundbreaking, innovative design inclusive engineering methods, always starting with a human-centered integrated approach.
Examples of design for geriatric giants include design for falls prevention, dementia care and integrated care.
The establishment of collaborative networks between clinicians and designers, academia and industry is required to advance design for autonomous ageing.
The use of 3D anthropometric data of children’s heads and faces has great potential in the development of protective gear and medical products that need to provide a close fit in order to function ...well. Given the lack of detailed data of this kind, the aim of this study is to map the size and shape variation of Dutch children’s heads and faces and investigate possible implications for the design of a ventilation mask. In this study, a dataset of heads and faces of 303 Dutch children aged six months to seven years consisting of traditional measurements and 3D scans were analysed. A principal component analysis (PCA) of facial measurements was performed to map the variation of the children’s face shapes. The first principal component describes the overall size, whilst the second principal component captures the more width related variation of the face. After establishing a homology between the 3D scanned face shapes, a second principal component analysis was done on the point coordinates, revealing the most prominent variations in 3D shape within the sample.
BACKGROUND: Former studies on work-related upper limb disorders (WRULD) within university education report substantial prevalence rates. In this study, developments in WRULD amongst students in the ...period 2004–2014 were investigated. Our findings can be a benchmark for future studies, in particular when there are major societal changes as in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic. OBJECTIVE: Differences in time (academic year), how long students have been studying (year of studying), relations with computer time and societal changes were points of interest. METHODS: 2254 students (average age 20.0 years) responded to a questionnaire on WRULD. Students experiencing complaints were further questioned about the severity of complaints and associated body locations. RESULTS: The average percentage of students experiencing complaints was 57%. The highest prevalence rates and severity scores were found in the first and last recorded academic years. The neck, shoulder, back and wrist were most often indicated. The prevalence of complaints raised from the 1st (49%) to the 4th (75%) year of studying. Two seriousness measures showed highest scores in the 5th/6th/7th year of studying. Relations were found between both the prevalence and seriousness of complaints with reported computer time. CONCLUSIONS: After an initial decreasing trend from the academic year 2006/2007 to 2010/2011 there was an increase in WRULD amongst students from 2010/2011 to 2013/2014. Limiting financial and study time factors may have played a role. Structural attention for WRULD prevention and risk factors seems to be effective in reducing prevalence and severity of WRULD. This seems to be even more necessary due to recent COVID-related changes in the students’ lives.
PDF
