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New Trends in the Biomechanical Assessment of Posture and Gait

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Applied Biosciences and Bioengineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2023) | Viewed by 2149

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Turin, Italy
Interests: exoskeletons; mechatronics; pneumatics; human motion; postural control; biomechanics; mechanisms; motion analysis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering DIMEAS, Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Turin, Italy
Interests: robotics; mechatronics; industrial automation; fluid power transmissions; biomechanics; biomedical engineering
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Nowadays, the systematic assessment of biomechanical performance is feasible and widely accepted thanks to the recent improvements in technologies for human motion analysis. The availability of systems and techniques aimed at providing quantitative and objective information about human motion has enabled an increasing number of observations with potential use in several scenarios, such as academic research, sport engineering and, ultimately, clinical environments. In addition, experimental trials can be supported by analytical or numerical modeling of the musculoskeletal system, which can potentially lead to in-depth biomechanical analyses that are not feasible in a practical scenario. The aim of this Special Issue is to present an overview of the latest advances in the biomechanical assessment of fundamental motion tasks such as posture and gait. In particular, the evaluation of posture control is of interest since the ability of a human being to maintain balance is critical to avoid or reduce the risk of falls, which still represent a relevant source of injury and death, especially in elderly people. An evaluation of gait biomechanics, on the other hand, is fundamental in many applications, such as during follow-up of patients that suffered an injury or underwent a treatment, or in R&D environments to test devices (prosthetics, orthotics, exoskeletons, wearables) that interact with the human body. Potential topics include, but are not limited to: the development of new techniques for the evaluation of posture in static and dynamic trials; new methods for gait analysis based on wearable sensors; approaches for biomechanical analyses in outdoor or harsh environments; low-cost systems for the biomechanical assessment of motion tasks; modeling of balance control system; parametric and non-parametric identification of musculoskeletal models for gait and posture analysis.

Dr. Carlo De Benedictis
Prof. Carlo Ferraresi
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • biomechanics
  • gait
  • posture
  • balance
  • motion
  • musculoskeletal modeling

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

16 pages, 10466 KiB  
Article
Visualization of Caregiving Posture and Risk Evaluation of Discomfort and Injury
by Xin Han, Norihiro Nishida, Minoru Morita, Mao Mitsuda and Zhongwei Jiang
Appl. Sci. 2023, 13(23), 12699; https://doi.org/10.3390/app132312699 - 27 Nov 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1582
Abstract
There is a high risk of musculoskeletal discomfort and injury due to the lack of professional guidance and training in caregiving postures. This study aimed to develop a risk assessment and visualization method by analyzing caregiving postures. Participants with (n = 8) [...] Read more.
There is a high risk of musculoskeletal discomfort and injury due to the lack of professional guidance and training in caregiving postures. This study aimed to develop a risk assessment and visualization method by analyzing caregiving postures. Participants with (n = 8) and without (n = 10) caregiving experience were recruited to simulate patient transfer from bed to wheelchair. The Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA) method lacked sensitivity in distinguishing the experienced and inexperienced groups. We found that the visualization of the center of gravity (COG) trajectory could represent distinct posture differences between the two groups. Based on this finding, we considered a modified REBA method combining the COG trajectory, load-bearing time, and asymmetric load parameters, named the Caregiving-REBA (C-REBA) method. Our results demonstrated that C-REBA could effectively distinguish experienced and inexperienced caregivers, especially in caregiving task Stages 2–4. In conclusion, the present work explored adjusting to the parameters of the REBA method. The proposed C-REBA method could be easily imbedded into the Internet of Things (IoT) device to assess the caregiving posture for providing visual guidance and warning of the risk of discomfort or injury. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Trends in the Biomechanical Assessment of Posture and Gait)
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