Wearable Lumbar-Motion Monitoring Device with Stretchable Strain Sensors

Abstract EN

Low-back pain is a common affliction.

Epidemiological analyses have reported that periodic cycles of lumbar flexion and rotation are major risk factors for low-back pain.

To prevent low-back pain, a lumbar-motion monitoring device could help diagnosticians assess patients’ risk for low-back pain.

This study proposes such a device that uses lightweight stretchable strain sensors.

Six of these strain sensors form a parallel-sensor mechanism that measures rotation angles of lumbar motion in three axes.

The parallel-sensor mechanism calculates rotation angles from the lengths of the strain sensors iteratively.

Experimental results reveal that the prototype device is effective for lumbar-motion measurement and significantly improves in terms of wearability over comparable devices.