Prototype of Wearable Technology Applied to the Monitoring of the Vertebral Column O principal objetivo desta pesquisa e o desenvolvimento de um modelo de tecnologia que permita o monitoramento da coluna vertebral, registrando movimentos nos pacientes afetados pelo tratamento auxiliar da lombalgia.               Assim, um modelo de tecnologia vestivel com sensores que monitoram os movimentos da coluna vertebral e registra os dados no aplicativo para smartphone foi desenvolvido nesta pesquisa para uso posterior por profissionais de saude.               O prototipo foi avaliado por meio de uma amostra de 33 voluntarios, observando uma funcionalidade do produto, uma avaliacao clinica da coluna vertebral, uma identificacao de habitos comportamentais na caracterizacao da amostra.              A viabilidade das tecnologias embarcadas computacionais em produtos de vestuario e evidenciada por esta pesquisa como um campo de estudo em uso, facilitando a coleta de dados do usuario no dia a dia.

Wearable Device to Monitor Back Movements Using an Inductive Textile Sensor Low back pain (LBP) is the most common workrelated musculoskeletal disorder among healthcare workers and is directly related to long hours of working in twistedbent postures or with awkward trunk movements. It has already been established that providing relevant feedback helps individuals to maintain better body posture during the activities of daily living. With the goal of preventing LBP through objective monitoring of back posture, this paper proposes a wireless, comfortable, and compact textilebased wearable platform to track trunk movements when the user bends forward. The smart garment developed for this purpose was prototyped with an inductive sensor formed by sewing a copper wire into an elastic fabric in a zigzag pattern. The results of an extensive simulation study showed that this unique design increases the inductance value of the sensor, and, consequently, improves its resolution. Furthermore, experimental evaluation on a healthy participant confirmed that the proposed wearable system with the suggested sensor design can easily detect forward bending movements. The evaluation scenario was then extended to also include twisting and lateral bending of the trunk, and it was observed that the proposed design can successfully discriminate such movements from forward bending of the trunk. Results of the magnetic interference test showed that, most notably, moving a cellphone towards the unworn prototype affects sensor readings, however, manipulating a cellphone, when wearing the prototype, did not affect the capability of the sensor in detecting forward bends. The proposed platform is a promising step toward developing wearable systems to monitor back posture in order to prevent or treat LBP.