Many work-related activities come with a risk of musculoskeletal problems, not least working at a desk. They are perhaps more commonly seen in the industrial or manual labour settings where repetitive movements, awkward postures, considerable muscular force and vibration, and lifting heavy objects are problematic.
A new study in the International Journal of Human Factors and Ergonomics introduces a tool that could be used by employers to assess the risk of such problems to their workers. The tool, the Ergonomist Assistant for Evaluation (ERAIVA), could streamline the process of identifying risky postures, which might lead to chronic pain and issues such as repetitive strain injury over time.
Where workers perform tasks that involve awkward body positions, repetitive movements, and heavy lifting there is an increased risk of debilitating conditions such as back pain and injury, carpal tunnel syndrome, and tendinitis. Previously, assessing such risks was done only on an ad hoc basis and not necessarily systematically, to the detriment of workers moreover the assessment itself was labour and time intensive, requiring experts to visually monitor workers or examine video footage of their activities.
Veeresh Elango, Lars Hanson, and Anna Syberfeldt of the University of Skövde, Staffan Hedelin and Johan Sandblad of Scania CV AB in Södertälje, and Mikael Forsman of the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, explain that ERAIVA addresses these shortcomings by offering an automated way to analyse and annotate video recordings of industrial tasks. The technology could avoid human error in assessing work tasks and the posture and activity of individuals carrying out those tasks. Such a system could allow posture and other problems to be corrected and reduce the risk of musculoskeletal problems.
The system is easy to use and so reduces the need for expert assessment and remediation. Engineers and operators, as well as risk assessors, can all work together with the results it provides to identify and mitigate risks in the workplace.
Elango, V., Hedelin, S., Hanson, L., Sandblad, J., Syberfeldt, A. and Forsman, M. (2024) ‘Evaluating ERAIVA – a software for video-based awkward posture identification’, Int. J. Human Factors and Ergonomics, Vol. 11, No. 6, pp.1–16.