Supporting shoulder pain prevention and treatment with wearable technology

Abstract

This research examines how wearable technology and supporting applications can help office workers maintain good posture and guide them to carry out shoulder exercises at their workplace. Specifically, we describe a smart garment designed to monitor upper body posture that provides vibrotactile notifications at different joint areas in order to remind users to correct their posture. We present the design and evaluation of a related smartphone application that supports shoulder training exercises to treat and prevent shoulder pain. The usability of the system for shoulder training was evaluated positively in a laboratory test (N=17). The effectiveness of the system for posture monitoring was assessed with a field deployment (N=25) in which students working with laptops used the posture monitoring system for a whole day. The results demonstrate the system can help the participants facilitate improving their posture in sedentary work.