Development of an ergonomic protective suit for physiotherapists during the COVID-19

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the provision of appropriate protective clothing for medical staff who must continue to perform their duties at this period is of particular importance. Physiotherapists are not allowed to suspend working during this time either, and the specifics of their work is close contact with the patient within various movements during the therapy process. Inadequate (intended for general use) protective clothing affects work capacity in the aspects of movement restriction, thermal comfort and thereby increasing energy consumption. For the design and supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) and protective clothing of the best possible quality, PPE should be explored in a systemic approach (holistics) to assess anthropometric fit and ergonomics, material properties and thermal performance. This study investigated anthropometric characteristics of target group representatives; sizing, fit and design flaws of protective suits for physiotherapists; provision of mobility in the protective clothing of physiotherapists; the protective suit fabric layer interaction with the human body and the importance of subjective evaluation of fit and ergonomics of PPE (made by specialists and wearers). The results of the study promote the usage of objective knowledge of anthropometry and ergonomics as well as subjective assessment findings in the development of protective suits for physiotherapists.

Upgrading Design of Medical Protective Clothing Based on User Experience

“…It has been shown that the safety properties of protective clothing are mainly focused on the structure and materials of protective clothing [5]. In particular, special attention should be paid to the airtightness of protective clothing in terms of the structure of protective clothing.…”

“…(3) The material of the existing medical protective clothing is not able to absorb the large amount of sweat produced by the health care workers at work. (4) The cold appearance of existing medical protective clothing can easily give patients negative psychological implications (5). The sizes of the existing protective clothing do not match the size of the health care workers and lack elasticity.…”

Development of Partition-Designed Outdoor Workwear with Optimal Fabric Selection

“…Despite there being several studies (e.g. cold protective clothing, 29 motorcycle protective clothing, 30 protective suits for physiotherapists, 31 sports clothing, 32 and ski suits 33 ) on modular clothing based on body mapping of sweating patterns, no research has been conducted on outdoor workwear with optimal fabric selection. The majority of previous studies focused on the uniform requirements of wearers, often using identical fabrics (e.g.…”

“…The analysis of in-service outdoor workwear covered environmental hazards, activity features, and subjective demands, such as protection, comfort, ergonomics, and compatibility. Multi-function partitioned design approaches [29][30][31][32][33] were then combined to develop the overall fabric design for outdoor workwear. Regarding fabric selection, we utilized an integrated ECM-AHP-Entropy-TOPSIS method as an MCDM tool for selecting and ranking suitable fabrics for outdoor workwear.…”