Imaging technologies for avoiding back pain at work

This paper presents the description of a low-cost system for movement tracking in the physiotherapeutic domain. The system aims rehabilitation exercises performed at home but can also take place in preventive care like body posture learning. The hardware consists of infra-red cameras, allowing a robust tracking, and reflective markers. This work focuses on the analysis of the working position in front of a computer and the correction of this one with audio signals if the user remains in a dangerous position for a too long time. 1 Problem description It frequently happens that people under physiotherapeutic treatment have to perform physical exercises at home between two consultations. The patient cannot profit of the therapist’s advises and this last cannot control if the asked exercises were really performed and if his instructions were respected. Our work consists in developing a virtual reality system controlling in 3D the movements and the position of the patient during rehabilitation exercises performed at home. Instructions are to be given in real time to the patient so that he can immediately correct his gestures. Such application can also take place in preventive care like body posture learning. This paper focuses on this last point. In our countries, more than 80% of the population suffer from back pain. Our system can help these people to adopt a better working posture and thus easily avoid neck and back pathologies. A typical example is given by employees working all the day in front of computers in bad positions and having neck pains. Thus, the systems will provide them a better ergonomic situation by warning them if they are staying in a dangerous position for too long.