Characterization of upper limb use in health care workers during regular shifts: A quantitative approach based on wrist-worn accelerometers

Despite the high prevalence of upper limb (UL) work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WRMSD) among health care workers (HCWs), little is known about their relationship with exposure to biomechanical risk factors. This study aimed to assess UL activity features under actual working conditions using two wrist-worn accelerometers. Accelerometric data were processed to obtain duration, intensity, and asymmetry of UL use in 32 HCWs during the execution of commonly performed tasks (e.g., patient hygiene, transfer, and meal distribution) within a regular shift. The results show that such tasks are characterized by significantly different patterns of UL use, in particular, higher intensities and larger asymmetries were observed respectively for patient hygiene and meal distribution. The proposed approach appears, thus, suitable to discriminate tasks characterized by different UL motion patterns. Future studies could benefit from the integration of such measures with self-reported workers’ perception to elucidate the relationship between dynamic UL movements and WRMSD.