Testing Effectiveness of a Teaching Tool That Uses a NonContact Sensor for Preventing Lower Back Pain Focusing on the most common cause of lower back pain in nursing behavior, which is the forward bending or halfsitting posture, we developed a noncontact sensor that uses sound to alert people when they are sitting at a dangerous anterior angle (30 degrees). In the present study, we installed a noncontact sensor for selfpractice for bedmaking skills. A skill test was conducted by dividing subjects into a group that used the teaching tool and one that did not, so that the assessment results could demonstrate their effectiveness. The assessment results did not indicate a significant difference between the group that used the teaching tool and the group that did not. However, approximately 70% of the group that used the teaching tool reported being able to have a wide base support area, lower the center of gravity, and that the centroidal line goes through the base of support, which are the most important factors to prevent lower back pain. Therefore, installing a noncontact sensor for selfpractice may be an effective teaching tool for raising awareness of postures that prevent lower back pain.

Functional Evaluation Using Inertial Measurement of Back School Therapy in Lower Back Pain Lower back pain is an extremely common health problem and globally causes more disability than any other condition. Among other rehabilitation approaches, back schools are interventions comprising both an educational component and exercises. Normally, the main outcome evaluated is pain reduction. The aim of this study was to evaluate not only the efficacy of back school therapy in reducing pain, but also the functional improvement. Patients with lower back pain were clinically and functionally evaluated; in particular, the timed xe2x80x9cup and goxe2x80x9d test with inertial movement sensor was studied before and after back school therapy. Fortyfour patients completed the program, and the results showed not only a reduction of pain, but also an improvement in several parameters of the timed up and go test, especially in temporal parameters (namely duration and velocity). The application of the inertial sensor measurement in evaluating functional aspects seems to be useful and promising in assessing the aspects that are not strictly correlated to the specific pathology, as well as in rehabilitation management.