Prolonged static work postures and posture constraints imposed by surgical equipment may increase the risk of musculoskeletal pain and discomfort in surgeons. Four surgeons were video recorded performing live microsurgery and a work sampling methodology was used to quantify their upper body postures, investigating the proportion of static and dynamic postures, and compare surgeon postures to the postures found in laboratory studies. Surgeons were found assuming flexed postures in their neck, shoulder, elbow, and back. Most of the procedure consists of static postures where movement greater than 10 degrees per second was not frequently detected in our sampling. Of the four surgeons, one surgeon was found on average to have lower neck flexion than the other three. Further investigation showed the surgeon looking through the microscope at a distance to assume a more upright neutral posture. Identifying surgeon work postures is a key step to understanding how to reduce musculoskeletal pain and discomfort.

Dehydration beyond 2% bodyweight loss should be monitored to reduce the risk of heat-related injuries during exercise. However, assessments of hydration in athletic settings can be limited in their accuracy and accessibility. In this study, we sought to develop a data-driven noninvasive approach to measure hydration status, leveraging wearable sensors and normal orthostatic movements. Twenty participants (10 males, 25.0 ± 6.6 years; 10 females, 27.8 ± 4.3 years) completed two exercise sessions in a heated environment: one session was completed without fluid replacement. Before and after exercise, participants performed 12 postural movements that varied in length (up to 2 min). Logistic regression models were trained to estimate dehydration status given their heart rate responses to these postural movements. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) was used to parameterize the model’s discriminative ability. Models achieved an AUROC of 0.79 (IQR: 0.75, 0.91) when discriminating 2% bodyweight loss. The AUROC for the longer supine-to-stand postural movements and shorter toe-touches were similar (0.89, IQR: 0.89, 1.00). Shorter orthostatic tests achieved similar accuracy to clinical tests. The findings suggest that data from wearable sensors can be used to accurately estimate mild dehydration in athletes. In practice, this method may provide an additional measurement for early intervention of severe dehydration.

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