The AAL/Care Laboratory – a healthcare prevention system for caregivers

The demographic change in Europe causes an imbalance between the potential recipients and providers of the services of healthcare systems. Additionally, the high number of sick leaves and days of inability to work in the profession of elderly care are worsening this situation. Manual patient handling is one of the risk factors and leads to high mechanical stress in the lower back. Understanding how physically demanding activities impact caregivers requires quantification of the potential risk factors. In a laboratory, transfer techniques, ambient assisted living (AAL) systems and tools for analysing the physical burden of caregiving are evaluated. A case study was conducted in a laboratory setting to examine the kinematics, kinetics and muscle activities of a caregiver in different regions of the lower extremity and spine during a standardised manual patient-transfer task. Results showed that with the effect of an ergonomic way of caregiving, the mean muscle activity of the lumbar erector spinae was reduced by 42%. The aim of this exploratory trial was to test the methods for use on a larger scale in future studies. The case study demonstrates the suitability of the utilised sensors for the quantification of musculoskeletal burden among healthcare workers.