Muscle fatigue assessment in manual handling of loads using motion analysis and accelerometers: A short review

Abstract

Muscle fatigue can cause productivity loss, human errors, unsafe actions, injuries and Work Related Musculoskeletal Disorders (WMSDs). To compensate muscle fatigue, people adapt their working strategy, changing movement patterns, recruiting different muscles and changing kinetic or kinematic components of the movement (like joint angles and velocities). This review, according to PRISMA Statement, was performed to summarize and analyze studies concerning muscle fatigue assessment using accelerometers and motion analysis. It was based on relevant articles published in 6 databases, namely Academic Search Complete, Inspec, PubMed, Science Direct, Scopus and Web of Science. A total of 15 articles were included in the systematic review. The following topics were analyzed: muscle groups evaluated, the tasks performed by the volunteer subjects, the assessment methods applied and the equipment and software used. Similar conclusions were obtained, regarding movement variability, muscular adaptations and changes in movement strategies, due to fatigue. (c) 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London.