PostureCare – Towards a novel system for posture monitoring and guidance

Choi

CHI '13 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems

et al. 2013

With the widespread use of smartphones, users tend to use their smartphones for a long period of time with unhealthy postures, bending forward their upper body including the neck. If users keep such an unhealthy posture for a long time, their neck and back muscles get chronically strained, which might cause diseases such as cervical myalgia. To prevent these diseases, we propose a new methodology to monitor the posture of smartphone users with built-in sensors. The proposed mechanism estimates a value representing user postures like head/neck tilt angle by analyzing sensor data from a front-faced camera, 3-axis accelerometer, and orientation sensor. It then informs the user if the estimated value is maintained within the abnormal range over a pre-defined time.

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Smart pose

Choi

CHI '13 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems

et al. 2013

CHI '13 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems

“…Chairs have been used for unobtrusive measurement of body movements [7,10] and the development of posture recognition systems for the classification of a person's sitting behavior [5,19,20] or emotions [2,21]. Chair-based tracking data has furthermore been explored for supporting people in learning [10,14] and ambient assisted living [7] environments.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rotating, tilting, bouncing

Probst

Lindlbauer

Greindl

et al. 2013

Self Cite

A typical office worker nowadays spends the majority of his time sedentary in the course of his working life. In this paper, we address the problem of sedentariness in the context of office work through smooth integration of light physical activity into the daily work routine. Equipping a flexible office chair with motion sensing functionality, the chair becomes a ubiquitous input device that provides an office worker with the possibility to use the movements of his body for tilting, rotating, or bouncing to control his workplace computer. Based on this idea, we apply an existing gesture taxonomy to body movements on an active office chair, and explore different application scenarios for ubiquitous gestural chair interaction.

2013 IEEE 10th Consumer Communications and Networking Conference (CCNC)

“…This system only checks whether users shift their posture by analyzing gathered sensor data. A. Schrempf et al developed a framework for classification of the sitting posture [5]. They integrated four force transducers into the traditional chair and calculated posture cost function based on the biomechanical model.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

A new posture monitoring system for preventing physical illness of smartphone users

Lee¹,

Lee²,

Choi³

et al. 2013

With the widespread use of smartphones, users tend to use their smartphone for a long period of time in unhealthy postures; bending forward the neck and watching the relatively small screen closely with concentration. If users keep such unhealthy postures for a long time, they are susceptible to musculoskeletal disorders and eye problems such as cervical disc and myopia, respectively. To prevent users from having these diseases, we propose a new methodology to monitor the posture of smartphone users with built-in sensors. The proposed mechanism estimates various values representing user postures like the tilt angle of the neck, viewing distance, and gaze condition of the user, by analyzing sensor data from a front-faced camera, 3-axis accelerometer, orientation sensor, or any combination thereof, and warns the user if estimated values are maintained within the abnormal range over the pre-defined time. As a proof of concept, we developed an Android application named Smart Pose which estimates the user's neck tilt angle from analysis of the facial image, shakiness and tilt angle of the smartphone, and then notifies the user when her/his neck tilt angle is maintained in an unusual range during the smartphone operation. Also, we validated the result of our system by the comparison with measurements from 3D posture imaging equipment in our research facility. Via the proposed mechanism, a participant was able to be aware of his unhealthy postures, and then try to correct them.