Subjective assessment of a lumbar exoskeleton's impact on lower back pain in a real work situation

Mélissa Moulart (1) , Nicolas Olivier (2) , Yonnel Giovanelli (3, 4) , Frédéric Marin (1, 5)

1 BMBI - Biomécanique et Bioingénierie
2 URePSSS - Unité de Recherche Pluridisciplinaire Sport, Santé, Société (URePSSS) - ULR 7369 - ULR 4488
3 PSMS - Performance, Santé, Métrologie, Société - EA 7507
4 SNCF
5 UTC - Université de Technologie de Compiègne

This study evaluated the impact of a lumbar exoskeleton on low back pain perception, in a real work situation. For three weeks, 30 subjects with and without specific low back pain assessed daily their lumbar pain on their work activities at the beginning and end of the workday by a visual analogue scale. The first and the third week, participants worked normally. The second week, participants wore the exoskeleton to work. For subjects with specific low back pain, our results showed a significant decrease in low back pain perception at the end of the week two when wearing the exoskeleton Our result showed that the exoskeleton studied had a positive impact on the pain index perception of workers with mechanical lumbar pathology.

Keywords: Exoskeleton; Pain assessment; Work environment

Domains: Biomechanics [physics.med-ph]; Bioengineering; Rhumatology and musculoskeletal system

Mélissa Moulart, Nicolas Olivier, Yonnel Giovanelli, Frédéric Marin. Subjective assessment of a lumbar exoskeleton's impact on lower back pain in a real work situation. Heliyon, 2022, 8 (11), pp.e11420. ⟨10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e11420⟩. ⟨hal-03887235⟩