Flexible Wearable Nanomaterial-Based Sensing Device for Back Pain and Injury Prevention

Poor trunk posture during daily activity is known to increase the risk of low back pain and decrease quality of life. Monitoring trunk posture is a promising, proactive way to help prevent low back pain. A flexible, wearable, posture-monitoring sensor has been developed and tested in this letter. The device, referred to as “spine tape,” consists of flexible carbon nanotube composite strain sensing elements, which are screen-printed onto athletic tapes, along with a customized microcontroller-based data collection system. The spine tape possesses highly customizable dimensions and can be readily applied onto the human body, while maintaining a discreet and comfortable user experience. A series of sensing tests, including mechanical loading tests and human subject tests, was performed to characterize the performance of the spine tape. In addition, human motion analysis was used to validate the prototype and identify future improvements.

I. Introduction

Flexible sensors have revolutionized the design of minimally invasive wearable health monitoring devices, allowing for better monitoring of health conditions such as musculoskeletal injuries [1], [2]. Among musculoskeletal injuries, low back pain (LBP) is most prevalent in the United States. At any given moment, 4-33% of the population may be affected [3]. Non-neutral postures during occupational tasks are significant contributing factors to LBP development [4]. A promising approach to reduce the risk of LBP before an injury occurs is to utilize wearable sensors to monitor posture in real-time and provide timely feedback to individuals.