Computer use and its association with musculoskeletal and visual symptoms is an escalating concern. Organizations are shifting to a more proactive injury prevention perspective. Accordingly, a ...macroergonomics intervention consisting of flexible workplace design and office ergonomics training was designed to examine the effects on worker's computing behaviors, postures, and musculoskeletal discomfort, and their relationship to psychosocial factors. Participants were assigned to either group: 1) no-intervention control 2) flexible Workplace-only (WP-only), and 3) flexible Workplace + Training (WP+T). Observational findings indicate both intervention groups experienced positive, significant changes in improved workstation arrangements and computing postures, with the WP+T intervention group exhibiting a higher, significant change of behavioral translation. Also, significant, positive relationships between observed postures and musculoskeletal discomfort/pain were found. The intervention effect was stronger when management was responsive to workers' ergonomics needs. This study suggests that a macroergonomics intervention can produce beneficial effects for office and computer workers and organizations.
•Intervention groups showed significant improvements of large effect size in workstation arrangements and postures.•The workplace + training intervention group showed better behavioral translation.•Observed postures and musculoskeletal discomfort/pain were significantly linked.•Intervention effect was stronger when management was responsive to employee's ergonomics needs.
We present a novel view of transitions from the lens of patient ergonomics (the “science of patient work”), which posits that patients and other non-professionals perform effortful work towards ...health-related goals. In patient work transitions, patients experience changes in, for example, health, task demands, work capacity, roles and responsibilities, knowledge and skills, routines, needs and technologies. Medication transitions are a particularly vulnerable type of patient work transitions. We describe two cases of medication transitions—new medications and medication deprescribing—in which the patient work lens reveals many accompanying changes, vulnerabilities, and opportunities for human factors and ergonomics.
•Patient ergonomics argues that patients perform work.•Changes in patient work or their work systems constitute a type of transition.•Medication transitions are an especially vulnerable period of change.•Medication prescribing/deprescribing are crucial types of patient work transitions.•Human factors methods can and should address transitions in patient work.
Participatory ergonomics relies on the involvement of people to constitute or improve their work environments. The present study aims to answer through a literature review how ergonomic interventions ...are performed in these environments. The research focussed on workspace design and processes related to participative ergonomics. The search in Scopus was performed for the period 2016 to 2020. From 200 articles, 28 were tabulated for content analysis encompassing the themes of ergonomic approach modes, use of intermediate objects and technological solutions adopted. The majority of the studies found were inserted in hospital, office and maritime/port environments. The results show that ergonomics approaches face diverse challenges: financial and time constraints, power asymmetries, experience levels, social, cultural and individual issues. Nevertheless, it sets out to develop skills, activities, competencies, and to organise these in a global and structured way. Further studies in a wide diversity of databases are needed to follow up the analysis of such approaches and conceptions of work activity.
This study conducted a review of the literature on ergonomic approaches in a variety of workspaces, whether they are being transformed or designed. Attention was sought for commonalities of approaches that resulted in the topics regarding intermediate objects and the technological impact on recent ergonomic interventions. The main finding denotes a greater need to consolidate virtual and physical tools and methods and to investigate an intervention framework that is applicable to most interventions, in addition to responding to the major challenges pointed out by the articles.
Ergonomics evaluation through measurements of biomechanical parameters in real time has a great potential in reducing non-fatal occupational injuries, such as work-related musculoskeletal disorders. ...Assuming a correct posture guarantees the avoidance of high stress on the back and on the lower extremities, while an incorrect posture increases spinal stress. Here, we propose a solution for the recognition of postural patterns through wearable sensors and machine-learning algorithms fed with kinematic data. Twenty-six healthy subjects equipped with eight wireless inertial measurement units (IMUs) performed manual material handling tasks, such as lifting and releasing small loads, with two postural patterns: correctly and incorrectly. Measurements of kinematic parameters, such as the range of motion of lower limb and lumbosacral joints, along with the displacement of the trunk with respect to the pelvis, were estimated from IMU measurements through a biomechanical model. Statistical differences were found for all kinematic parameters between the correct and the incorrect postures (
< 0.01). Moreover, with the weight increase of load in the lifting task, changes in hip and trunk kinematics were observed (
< 0.01). To automatically identify the two postures, a supervised machine-learning algorithm, a support vector machine, was trained, and an accuracy of 99.4% (specificity of 100%) was reached by using the measurements of all kinematic parameters as features. Meanwhile, an accuracy of 76.9% (specificity of 76.9%) was reached by using the measurements of kinematic parameters related to the trunk body segment.
Participatory Ergonomics Programmes are generally considered to be Macroergonomics interventions in order to contribute to the continuous improvement of the work. However, over the past few decades, ...the industrial operation has been changing until reaching a new form of industrialisation. Now, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Industry 4.0, begins to be part of the routine of organisations and people. In this sense, this article aimed to perform a literature review about the existing studies on the relationship of Industry 4.0 and Participatory Ergonomics. Through the combination of keywords, 112 articles were found. After eliminating the repeated articles, an analysis was performed with the remaining articles, showing the sources and period of publication, countries and most frequent keywords. Finally, a more detailed analysis was performed with the 10 most recent articles published in Journals. The "Operator 4.0" is a valuable resource in order to integrate Ergonomics and the Industry 4.0, being that researches are scarce and much remains to be investigated.
The aim of this study was to investigate the development of back muscle activity during a simulated 4.5-h truck drive with professional long-haul truck drivers and to assess the effects of a ...seat-integrated stimulation on muscle activity during the drive.
Muscle activity was compared intra-individually between a stimulation condition (with seat-integrated stimulation) and a no-stimulation condition (without seat-integrated stimulation) in a simulated driving study (N = 16). During the drive, sEMGs of the m. trapezius pars descendens, m. trapezius pars ascendens and m. erector spinae were recorded bilaterally and the RMS values of the sEMG amplitudes were analyzed.
There was a significant increase in muscle activity within 1-h driving periods (in m. trapezius pars descendens and m. trapezius pars ascendens) in both the stimulation and the no-stimulation condition but not within the whole sitting duration (in all muscles). Contrary to our expectations, the RMS values did not differ between conditions.
Short-term effects on back muscle activity of long-haul truck drivers during 1-h driving periods were found with and without the seat-integrated stimulation. However, interruptions of the driving task seemed to be sufficient to eliminate these effects. These findings on back muscle activity in long-haul drivers reveal new insights as to what affects the musculoskeletal system in prolonged driving.
In future studies, an uninterrupted driving task under real conditions should be used to investigate possible effects of prolonged driving on truck drivers’ muscle activity in general and of seat-integrated stimulation on back muscle activity in particular.
•Effects of a simulated 4.5-h drive on back muscle activity of long-haul truck drivers.•Muscle activity was compared intra-individually between a stimulation condition and a no-stimulation condition.•Increase in muscle activity within 1-h driving periods (in m. trapezius pars descendens and m. trapezius pars ascendens).•Short-term effects on back muscle activity of truck drivers were found with and without the seat-integrated mobilization.
Different from mouse-based and touch-based interactions at a static distance, motion-sensing interaction on a large display is typically performed at varying distances ranging from an arm's length to ...several metres. To investigate the effect of distance on visual search and freehand interaction performance, an empirical experiment was conducted; 30 participants were recruited to complete a series of target search and freehand selection tasks on large displays, which were 1.6 and 2.4 m wide, respectively. The results indicated that (1) the user-preferred viewing distance was positively related to the physical size of the display: a larger display size corresponded to a larger viewing distance. (2) The viewing distance had a two-sided effect on the visual search time efficiency. At a close range, increasing distance improved the search time efficiency; but at a farther range, the efficiency decreased. (3) An optimal field of view at which visual search was most efficient was found; (4) however, increasing the distance lowered freehand interaction efficiency and accuracy. Changing the distance also caused variations in the performance on divided large display areas: (5) the visual search efficiency on the upper area was higher than that on the lower area, increasing the distance reduced the difference; (6) freehand interaction efficiency and accuracy on the lower area outperformed that on the upper area, increasing the distance also reduced the difference. Implications were discussed for building more efficient and user-friendly large display-based user interfaces.
•User-to-display distance has a significant influence on the large display interaction.•There is an optimal field of view at which visual search efficiency is the highest.•Increasing distance has a negative influence on the free hand interaction efficiency and accuracy.•There are ergonomic distinctions on divided areas of a large display.
Although virtual reality (VR) has many applications, only few studies have investigated user acceptance of this type of immersive technology. We propose an extended version of the Technology ...Acceptance Model (TAM) that addresses some aspects of VR. Our model includes variables from the TAM, user experience, variables specific to VR, and variables relating to user characteristics. This model was tested with 89 users who performed an aeronautical assembly task in VR. Results suggest that intention to use VR is positively influenced by perceived usefulness and negatively influenced by cybersickness. Hedonic quality-stimulation and personal innovativeness are predictors of perceived usefulness. Perceived ease of use does not have a significant impact on intention to use and it is only influenced by pragmatic quality. These findings have a number of implications regarding user acceptance of VR.
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