Biomechanical Assessments of the Upper Limb for Determining Fatigue, Strain and Effort from the Laboratory to the Industrial Working Place: A Systematic Review

Recent human-centered developments in the industrial field (Industry 5.0) lead companies and stakeholders to ensure the wellbeing of their workers with assessments of upper limb performance in the workplace, with the aim of reducing work-related diseases and improving awareness of the physical status of workers, by assessing motor performance, fatigue, strain and effort. Such approaches are usually developed in laboratories and only at times they are translated to on-field applications; few studies summarized common practices for the assessments. Therefore, our aim is to review the current state-of-the-art approaches used for the assessment of fatigue, strain and effort in working scenarios and to analyze in detail the differences between studies that take place in the laboratory and in the workplace, in order to give insights on future trends and directions. A systematic review of the studies aimed at evaluating the motor performance, fatigue, strain and effort of the upper limb targeting working scenarios is presented. A total of 1375 articles were found in scientific databases and 288 were analyzed. About half of the scientific articles are focused on laboratory pilot studies investigating effort and fatigue in laboratories, while the other half are set in working places. Our results showed that assessing upper limb biomechanics is quite common in the field, but it is mostly performed with instrumental assessments in laboratory studies, while questionnaires and scales are preferred in working places. Future directions may be oriented towards multi-domain approaches able to exploit the potential of combined analyses, exploitation of instrumental approaches in workplace, targeting a wider range of people and implementing more structured trials to translate pilot studies to real practice

Combining Near Infrared Spectroscopy and functional MRI during Continuous Performance Test in healthy subjects

Proceedings of the 28th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBS'06: pp. 1944-1947.The study of cognitive functions is a major challenge of the modern functional imaging. Activation of specific cerebral area is obtained from the observation of physic characteristic affected by changes occurring in the blood flow resulting from an increased metabolic consumption. In this work two imaging techniques are used, the functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) and the Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS), in order to assess cerebral performance during the execution of a well known sustained attention task, the Conners’ Continuous Performance Test (CPT). With fMRI analysis were found activations in the frontal, parietal and supplementary motor areas, whereas NIRS system showed a region-wise difference in the variations of parameters and different activation trend localized in the middle-right frontal area. The combined analysis of the two techniques allows to obtain more detailed information and places itself as a first step toward a result of multimodal image integration

The Effect of Baseline on Toddler Event-Related Mu-Rhythm Modulation

Event-related mu-rhythm activity has become a common tool for the investigation of different socio-cognitive processes in pediatric populations. The estimation of the mu-rhythm desynchronization/synchronization (mu-ERD/ERS) in a specific task is usually computed in relation to a baseline condition. In the present study, we investigated the effect that different types of baseline might have on toddler mu-ERD/ERS related to an action observation (AO) and action execution (AE) task. Specifically, we compared mu-ERD/ERS values computed using as a baseline: (1) the observation of a static image (BL1) and (2) a period of stillness (BL2). Our results showed that the majority of the subjects suppressed the mu-rhythm in response to the task and presented a greater mu-ERD for one of the two baselines. In some cases, one of the two baselines was not even able to produce a significant mu-ERD, and the preferred baseline varied among subjects even if most of them were more sensitive to the BL1, thus suggesting that this could be a good baseline to elicit mu-rhythm modulations in toddlers. These results recommended some considerations for the design and analysis of mu-rhythm studies involving pediatric subjects: in particular, the importance of verifying the mu-rhythm activity during baseline, the relevance of single-subject analysis, the possibility of including more than one baseline condition, and caution in the choice of the baseline and in the interpretation of the results of studies investigating mu-rhythm activity in pediatric populations

The Colibri project: A multicenter shared database of magnetic resonance images about rare neurological diseases

Rare diseases occur infrequently or rarely in a population and among them, nearly 75% affect children. To date, their low prevalence and heterogeneity resulted in a lack of scientific knowledge and prevented an access to a quick and correct diagnosis. The sharing of multiple sources of information from different centers and actors may have a key role in this field. In order to address this issue, a network of Italian centers of excellence in pediatric neuroradiology launched the Colibri project with the aim to collect, share and process data about rare disease patients. The goal is to constitute a large dataset including Magnetic Resonance images and other clinical data of pediatric subjects in order to provide a service for the research and the consultation. The dataset will be made available through an architecture whose components are compliant with the DICOM Standard and will encompass a security mechanism to ensure subject privacy

Optimal Biomechanical Performance in Upper-Limb Gestures Depends on Velocity and Carried Load

In the last few years, there has been increased interest in the preservation of physical and mental health of workers that cooperate with robots in industrial contexts, such as in the framework of the European H2020 Mindbot Project. Since biomechanical analysis contributes to the characterization of the subject interacting with a robotic setup and platform, we tested different speed and loading conditions in a simulated environment to determine upper-limb optimal performance. The simulations were performed starting from laboratory data of people executing upper-limb frontal reaching movements, by scaling the motion law and imposing various carried loads at the hand. The simulated velocity ranged from 20% to 200% of the original natural speed, with step increments of 10%, while the hand loads were 0, 0.5, 1, and 2 kg, simulating carried objects. A 3D inverse kinematic and dynamic model was used to compute upper-limb kinematics and dynamics, including shoulder flexion, shoulder abduction, and elbow flexion. An optimal range of velocities was found in which the expended energy was lower. Interestingly, the optimal speed corresponding to lower exerted torque and energy decreased when the load applied increased. Lastly, we introduced a preliminary movement inefficiency index to evaluate the deviation of the power and expended energy for the shoulder flexion degree of freedom when not coinciding with the minimum energy condition. These results can be useful in human–robot collaboration to design minimum-fatigue collaborative tasks, tune setup parameters and robot behavior, and support physical and mental health for workers

Wearable Inertial Sensors to Assess Gait during the 6-Minute Walk Test: A Systematic Review

Wearable sensors are becoming increasingly popular for complementing classical clinical assessments of gait deficits. The aim of this review is to examine the existing knowledge by systematically reviewing a large number of papers focusing on the use of wearable inertial sensors for the assessment of gait during the 6-minute walk test (6MWT), a widely recognized, simple, non-invasive, low-cost and reproducible exercise test. After a systematic search on PubMed and Scopus databases, two raters evaluated the quality of 28 full-text articles. Then, the available knowledge was summarized regarding study design, subjects enrolled (number of patients and pathological condition, if any, age, male/female ratio), sensor characteristics (type, number, sampling frequency, range) and body placement, 6MWT protocol and extracted parameters. Results were critically discussed to suggest future directions for the use of inertial sensor devices in the clinics

Activation of the prefrontal cortex during a visual n-back working memory task with varying memory load: a Near Infrared Spectroscopy Study

We evaluated frontal brain activation during a Working Memory task with graded levels of difficulty in a group of 15 healthy subjects, by means of fNIRS technique. Brain activation (% signal change with respect to the baseline) was computed and load-related increases of blood oxygenation were found for the four different levels of task difficulty. Generalized Linear Models were applied to the data in order to evaluate the metabolic processes occurring during the mental effort and, possibly, their involvement in short term memorization. The Cognitive Failure Questionnaire was also administered in order to assess its diagnostic relevance in clinics. Results attest a monotous increase of brain oxygenation with WM load during the first half of task, persisting through the central resting period and prevailing in the left hemisphere. Decreasing WM load is also coupled with oxygenated hemoglobin decrease

A collaborative environment for shared classification of neuroimages: The experience of the Colibri project

The Colibri project is introduced, whose aim is setting up a shared database of Magnetic Resonance images concerning pediatric patients affected by neurological rare disorders. The project involves 19 Italian centers of excellence in pediatric neuro-radiology and is supported by the nationwide coordinating center for the Information and Communication Technology research infrastructure. After the first year devoted to the design and the implementation, in November 2014 the system finally went into service at the centers involved in the project. This paper illustrates the initial assessment of the user perception and provides some preliminary statistics about its use

EEG indices correlate with sustained attention performance in patients affected by diffuse axonal injury

The aim of this study is to assess the ability of EEG-based indices in providing relevant information about cognitive engagement level during the execution of a clinical sustained attention (SA) test in healthy volunteers and DAI (diffused axonal injury)-affected patients. We computed three continuous power-based engagement indices (Pβ/Pα, 1/Pα, and Pβ/ (Pα+ Pθ)) from EEG recordings in a control group (n = 7) and seven DAI-affected patients executing a 10-min Connersâ\u80\u99 â\u80\u9cnot-Xâ\u80\u9d continuous performance test (CPT). A correlation analysis was performed in order to investigate the existence of relations between the EEG metrics and behavioral parameters in both the populations. Pβ/Pαand 1/Pαindices were found to be correlated with reaction times in both groups while Pβ/ (Pα+ Pθ) and Pβ/Pαalso correlated with the errors rate for DAI patients. In line with previous studies, time course fluctuations revealed a first strong decrease of attention after 2 min from the beginning of the test and a final fading at the end. Our results provide evidence that EEG-derived indices extraction and evaluation during SA tasks are helpful in the assessment of attention level in healthy subjects and DAI patients, offering motivations for including EEG monitoring in cognitive rehabilitation practice. [Figure not available: see fulltext.