• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.155-165
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• 2014

Objective: The aim of this study is to develop an office chair enabling to keep working at reclined sitting posture. Background: Sedentary workers are supposed to change the posture frequently during long hours of sitting. A reclined sitting position has been recommended to reduce disc pressure. But slumped sitting posture caused by the buttock sliding forward without any adjustment of back reclining is commonly observed. The worker seems to have tendency to change the sitting posture maintaining working condition. We assumed the reason to be their hands movement away from the working space when tilting backward. Method: Slide mechanism allowing seat to move forward was designed to maintain the hand position in working space during reclining. A prototype was manufactured and tilting motion was analyzed using motion capture system. Four experiment chairs were tested including the manufactured prototype chair and three other commercial chairs. Results: A backward movements of the hand position were 13.0mm, 101.7mm, 156.1mm and 139.3mm at the prototype chair, compared to chair B, chair C and chair D, respectively. And the movement was remarkably small at the prototype chair. Conclusion: The developed seat sliding chair allows back tilting maintaining hand position at working space. We expect the user tilting back more often than normal tilting chair during seated work. But further investigation is required to figure out the effectiveness of the developed chair using prolonged working hours. Application: The developed office chair directly affects commercialization.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Integrative Medicine
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.11-17
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• 2017

Purpose : The aim of this study was to verify differences in cervicocephalic joint position sense error after different sustained sitting postures in healthy young adults. Methods : Twenty-five healthy adults(12 men, 13 women) participated in this study. Repositioning errors of neck movement were observed in participants during joint repositioning tasks. During 2 test days with a 1-week interval, the participants performed forward head posture and upright sitting posture in random order. Both head-to-neutral(HTN) and head-to-target(HTT) tasks were performed on each day. On the first day, the participants sat slouched or upright for 10 minutes. Then, they sat upright and moved their heads at a self-selected speed with their eyes-closed to pre-determined neutral and target positions as accurately as possible. The participants noticed that when they reached a pre-determined position, the errors between pre-determined neutral and target positions and current position was recorded. The tasks consisted of flexion, extension and lateral bending. On the second day, the same test was performed after another sitting posture for 10 minutes. Repositioning error values were collected by using a smart phone-based inclinometer. The mean value for three trials was used for data analysis. A paired t-test was used for statistical analysis. Results : Significant differences in joint repositioning errors were found between the repositioning error after different sitting postures on the sagittal plane for both the HTN and HTT tasks (P<.05). No significant differences in errors on the coronal plane were found (P>.05). Conclusion : Cervicocephalic joint position sense can be affected by sitting postures, especially on the sagittal plane.

• The Journal of Korean Physical Therapy
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.255-266
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• 2022

Purpose: This study sought to study the effects of cross-legged sitting posture on joint motion. It also examined the correlation between the changes in the joint range of motion, musculoskeletal symptoms, and facial asymmetry. Methods: The Acumar Digital Inclinometer (Lafayette Instrument Company, USA) was used to measure the range of motion (ROM). We measured the flexion and extension of the cervical, thoracic, and lumbar spine using a dual inclinometer, and measured the ROM of the shoulder and hip joint with a single inclinometer. The Likert scale questionnaire was used to investigate musculoskeletal symptoms and facial asymmetry. Results: The data analysis was performed using the Jamovi version 1.6.23 statistical software. After confirming the normality of the ROM with descriptive statistics, it was compared with the normal ROM through a one-sample t-test. Correlation matrix analysis was performed to confirm the association between facial asymmetry and musculoskeletal symptoms. The result of the one-sample t-test showed a significant increase in the thoracic spine extension and right and left hip external rotation (p<0.001^***), while most other joints were restricted. As per the frequency analysis, facial asymmetry was found to be 81.70%. Conclusion: The independent variable, namely cross-legged sitting posture led to an increase in ROM. The study also suggests that facial asymmetry and musculoskeletal symptoms could occur. Therefore, to prevent the increase and limitation of ROM and to prevent the occurrence of facial asymmetry and musculoskeletal symptoms, it is suggested that the usual cross-legged sitting posture should be avoided.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.314-320
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• 2019

Background: Sitting posture may be related to risk factors, including inadequate weight-bearing support, particularly when maintained for long periods. Considering that body weight is loaded in a closed support system composed of the seat, backrest, floor and working surface, the aims of the present study were to describe the development of an ergonomic sitting workstation to continuously record weight-bearing at the seat, chair, backrest, work surface, and floor and to test its measurement properties: reproducibility, criterion-related validity, and sensitivity. Methods: Rigid bodies (1 to 30 kg) and participant weights were recorded to evaluate the workstation measurement properties. Results: Rigid body tests showed variation values less than 0.050 kg on reproducibility test and errors below 5% of measured value on criterion validity tests. Participant tests showed no statistically significant differences between repeated measures ($p{\geq}0.40$), errors were less than 2% of participant weights an sensitivity presented statistically significant changes (p = 0.007). Conclusion: The sitting workstation proposed showed to be reliable, valid and sensitive for use in future ergonomic studies to evaluate the sitting posture.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.145-152
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• 2013

Objective: The aim of this study is to develop an ergonomic office chair that has an alarm function for the unbalanced sitting postures. Background: Contrary to expectation, it is reported that office workers sit on their chairs much more in unbalanced postures during daily work. Even though an office worker uses an ergonomically good-designed chair and begins their work in a good sitting posture, his/her posture is likely to shift to the unbalanced bad posture. Therefore, a posture alarm system would be very helpful in keeping office workers' good postures. Method: We developed a prototype chair with four load cells under a seat pan and one load cell beneath a backrest. Through some experiments, we set the criteria for unbalanced bad postures then implemented the criteria into the alarm system of the prototype chair. The chair called e-BASE chair could detect unbalance postures and show alarms for chair users. We also enhanced back support by developing a step-wised folding backrest. Results: The e-BASE chair showed better performance in interface pressure distributions and balanced posture ratio in VDT work. Conclusion: The ergonomic chair with posture alarm function(e-BASE chair) was developed. It showed better performance in seat pressure distribution and in keeping good posture during office work. Application: The posture alarm system and folding backrest can be applied to the new models of office chair.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.77-83
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to examine the relative effectiveness of immediate feedback and informational prompt on safe sitting behaviors that may cause VDT syndromes. Participants were three white color workers and an ABCB within-subject design was adopted. Safety Posture System was developed specifically for the present study. The system could detect participants' unsafe sitting postures using sensors and provide feedback and prompt on the computer monitors. The results indicated that both immediate feedback and informational prompt considerably increased safe sitting behaviors. More importantly, the immediate feedback was more effective than the informational prompt in increasing safe sitting behaviors.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2021.05a
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• pp.369-372
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• 2021

These days, people spend more time sitting at a desk for studies or work. Also, because people continue to use computers, smartphones, and tablet PCs often during break times, their posture is getting worse. Maintaining a position of bad posture for an extended period of time causes problems with the musculoskeletal system related to the neck, shoulders, and spine. Additionally, problems such as physical fatigue and posture deformation are predicted to expand to a wide range of age groups. Therefore, the core function of the system we are developing is to ensure correct sitting posture and to receive alert notifications via the created mobile application. To create the system, a flex sensor, pressure sensor, and tilt sensor are attached to a chair and utilized. The flex sensor detects and compares the amount of bending in the chair's posture and transmits this value to an Arduino Uno R3 board. Additionally, information such as body balance and incline angle are collected to determine whether or not the current sitting posture is correct. When the posture is incorrect, a notification is sent through the mobile application to indicate to the user and the monitoring app that their posture is not correct. The system proposed in this study is expected to be of great help in future posture-related research.

• The Journal of Korean Physical Therapy
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.43-49
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• 1995

The purpose of this study were to determine the effect of testing posture and elbow position on grip strength. Two hundred college students 100 males and 100 females aged 18 to 28 years, participated in the study. A Grip-Strength Dynamometer was used to measure the grip strength in two testing posture(sitting and standin) and four elbow position$(0^{\circ},\;45^{\circ},\;90^{\circ}\;and\;135^{\circ}\;flexion)$ correlations and t-test was used to determine any significant difference in grip strength between the testing posture and the elbow position. The results were as follows : 1. The grip strength was affected by testing pasture and flexion degree of elbow. 2. The grip strength was stronger in the standing than sitting in subjects 3. The grip strength decreased according to elbow flexion increase in subjects. 4. The higher grip strength gained in the standing with the elbow 0 flexion. 5. The grip strength by elbow flexion degree showed significant difference at sitting and standing posture. The grip strength was significant differenced by testing position at same elbow flexion degree.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.191-202
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• 2014

Objective: This study is conducted on the differences between flat and curved displays with respect to location of focused points, posture and satisfaction as well as preferred tilt angles. Background: In order to avoid physical and eye fatigue caused by misplayed sitting posture, many studies have asserted that the display requires appropriate location, size and tilt angle as well as curvature. However, most studies have focused on the work environment and the results are varied in the extent. Method: Eye height data in sitting posture were collected from 30 participants. Participants selected the most comfortable viewing angle within the range from $0^{\circ}$ to $12^{\circ}$ while watching videos for both curved and flat display. Then, physical and eye fatigue and overall satisfaction were subjectively evaluated. Lateral diagram describing viewing display condition was set and used to develop linear models for expecting the preferred tilt angle. Results: Due to sitting in the natural viewing posture rather than upright, the eye height is lowered to about 4.6 centimeters, on average, for both displays showing no significant differences. In contrast, preferred angles for the two displays are significantly different and this can be interpreted that curvature vary the points focused. Two linear models as functions of sitting eye height are developed to expect preferred tilt angle for each display. Based on the result of overall satisfaction evaluation, curved display is statistically better than flat display. Conclusion: The results show that flat and curved displays are significantly different expect for the viewing posture. However, reasons for preferring curved display are not accurately factorized and the linear models are limited in the experiment condition such as size of display, distance between display and viewer and other physical environmental factors. Further studies on curved displays under more various conditions are required. Application: This study can contribute to use of the curved display in various way.

• Physical Therapy Korea
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.93-102
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• 2015

Prolonged sitting can contribute to low back pain. The lumbar taping can be applied to correct the sitting posture. This study aimed to investigate the effect of lumbar taping on lumbar kinematics and the muscle activities of multifidus (MF) and internal oblique in the individuals with nonspecific chronic low back pain (NSCLBP) as they type for 30 minutes. Nineteen subjects with NSCLBP (9 people in non taping group and 10 people in taping group) were recruited. Lumbar taping was applied to the taping group before typing. Both groups started typing in a neutral sitting position with their feet on the floor. The change of posture and S2 posterior tilting (S2P) were measured to investigate kinematic data. Three sensors were attached on T12, L3, and S2 to identify the change of posture. Surface electromyography was used to measure the muscle activities. Palpation meter was used to standardize the angle of pelvic tilt in sagittal plane before typing. All instruments were used to measure each data before and after typing. Independent t-test was used to compare the changing values of lumbar kinematics and muscle activities before and after typing between both groups. The changing values of S2P and change of posture of L3 and S2 were significantly smaller in the taping group compared to the non taping group (p<.05). The changing value of muscle activities of MF between before and after typing was significantly smaller in the taping group compared to the non taping group (p<.05). In conclusion, the lumbar taping during the 30-minute typing task can be applied to maintain correct sitting posture in the lumbar and pelvis and to maintain activation of MF.