Workplace injuries are a major cause of pain, stress, and expense for individuals, companies and health-care systems.
But algorithms newly developed at the University of Waterloo can help prevent those injuries, even before the job exists.
In the lab of Clark Dickerson, a Waterloo kinesiology professor and an NSERC Canada Research Chair in Shoulder Mechanics in the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences, mathematical models are created to help simulate how different activities and tasks can injure the muscles, joints and tendons connected to the shoulder.
The research involves having people wear sensors that will generate computer visualizations of what is happening to the body as a person performs a workplace task. Dickerson’s team is also involved in designing the job before it exists, in a virtual environment, in order to reduce the possibility of injury.
The data and the models they create can then be used by practitioners responsible for designing work tasks to promote ergonomic health and safety.
