Translational Acceleration, Rotational Speed, and Joint Angle of Patients Related to Correct/Incorrect Methods of Transfer Skills by Nurses

Abstract

Currently, due to shortages in the nursing faculty and low access to actual patients, it is difficult for students to receive feedback from teachers and practice with actual patients to obtain clinic experience. Thus, both evaluation systems and simulated patients have become urgent requirements. Accordingly, this study proposes a method to evaluate the nurse's transfer skill through observation from the patient. After verifying the proposed method, it will be integrated with a robotic patient as a future work. To verify if such an evaluation is practical, a checklist comprising 16 steps with correct and incorrect methods was proposed by the nursing teachers. Further, the evaluation parameters were determined as translational acceleration, rotational speed, and joint angle of patient. Inertial sensors and motion capture were employed to measure the translational acceleration, rotational speed, and joint angle. An experiment was conducted with two nursing teachers, who were asked to carry out both correct and incorrect methods. According to the results, three parameters reveal the difference for a patient under correct/incorrect methods and can further be used to evaluate the nurse's skill once the thresholds are determined. In addition, the applicability of inertial sensors is confirmed for the use of robot development.

Keywords: human movement; inertial sensors; motion capture; patient transfer skill.

Figure 1

Evaluation system of transfer skill (a) our previous work (b) final goal.

Figure 2

Patient transfer skills of (a) sitting on the bed; (b) mutual hugging; (c) standing up; (d) pivot turning; (e) sitting down on the wheelchair; and (f) final posture adjustment.

Figure 3

Installation of inertial sensors and motion capture markers on the patient.

Figure 4

Experimental procedure.

Figure 5

Illustration of the experiment (a) transfer trial (b) computation of joint angle of SIMM.

Figure 6

Translational acceleration of patient’s waist during step No. 15 under (a) correct way, and (b) incorrect way conducted at step No. 3.

Figure 7

Translational displacement of patient’s waist during step No. 11 through (a) correct way, and (b) incorrect way conducted at step No. 10.

Figure 7

Translational displacement of patient’s waist during step No. 11 through (a) correct way, and (b) incorrect way conducted at step No. 10.

Figure 8

Translational acceleration of patient’s waist during step No. 15 through correct way.

Figure 9

Translational acceleration of patient’s chest during step No. 15 through incorrect way conducted at step No. 14.

Figure 10

Translational acceleration of patient’s waist during step No. 15 when incorrect way was conducted at step No. 15.

Figure 11

Rotational speed of patient’s waist during step No. 5 when the (a) correct way, and (b) incorrect way 5-(1) were conducted at step No. 5.

Figure 12

Rotational speed of patient’s chest during step No. 12 when the (a) correct way and (b) incorrect way were conducted at step No. 7.

Figure 13

Rotational speed of patient’s chest during step No. 12 when the incorrect way was conducted at step No. 9.

Figure 14

Flexion angle of patient’s hip during step No. 11 through the (a) correct way, and (b) incorrect way conducted at step No. 2.

Figure 15

Flexion angle of patient’s (a) hip and (b) knee during step No. 11 when correct way was conducted at steps No. 5, 6 and 11.

Figure 16

Flexion angle of patient’s hip during step No. 11 when the incorrect way was conducted at step No. 5-(2).

Figure 17

Flexion angle of patient’s knee during step No. 11 when incorrect way was conducted at step No. 6.

Figure 18

Flexion angle of patient’s knee during step No. 11 when the incorrect way was conducted during step No. 11.

Figure 19

Flexion angle of patient’s hip joint during step No. 11 when incorrect way was conducted at step No. 11.

Figure 20

Adduction angle of patient’s shoulder during step No. 7 through the (a) correct way, and (b) incorrect way conducted at step No. 7.

Figure 21

Flexion angle of patient’s hip during step No. 15 when the (a) correct way, and (b) incorrect way were conducted at step No. 15.

Figure 22

Flexion angle of patient’s hip during step No. 16 when the (a) correct way, and (b) incorrect way were conducted at step No. 16.