Evaluating the Ergonomic Safety of Colonoscopy Use During Colonoscopy with Motion Capture and Biomechanical Modelling

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Evaluating the Ergonomic Safety of Colonoscopy Use During Colonoscopy with Motion Capture and Biomechanical Modelling

Evaluating the Ergonomic Safety of Colonoscopy Use During Colonoscopy with Motion Capture and Biomechanical Modelling

Matthew Schultz
Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry

FUNDER: Schulich-Windsor Campus Opportunities for Research Excellence Program (SWORP)

GRANT DURATION: 2026-2027

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Colonoscopy is a widely performed procedure essential to gastrointestinal disease screening, diagnosis, and treatment. It is performed with a colonoscope, whose operation requires the repetitive application of large forces at straining angles to the user’s joints. These ergonomic stressors put endoscopists at high risk for musculoskeletal injuries. Previous research on endoscopist injuries has used self reported surveys and qualitative data, but the colonoscope’s design with regards to biomechanical stress has not been objectively measured. This project aims to characterize the safety profile of the colonoscope, by evaluating whether the biomechanical forces generated by the endoscopist during colonoscopies exceed the established ergonomic joint stress standards. To accomplish this, we will track a general surgeon’s wrist, elbow, and shoulder movements during a series of colonoscopies. This will be achieved by outfitting the surgeon with Xsens Awinda motion-capture sensors and AXS EKR pressure-sensing gloves. The recorded kinematic and kinetic data will be imported into Process Simulate X Human software, to extract the forces and moments generated about the examined joints during the procedures. These values will be compared to established joint strength capacity limits, which represent ergonomic safety thresholds for joint stress. Our hypothesis is that the forces and moments generated about the wrists, elbows, and shoulders during the colonoscopies will exceed those ergonomic thresholds. If our hypothesis is supported, this study would provide quantitative evidence of injury risk associated with the current colonoscope’s design, and support future studies aimed at evaluating colonoscope modifications to reduce musculoskeletal injuries among endoscopists.
Survey data suggest that forces and moments will surpass the strength values of females at the 75th percentile, highlighting a significant risk of musculoskeletal injury from the procedure. Our findings are expected to support the need for redesigning the colonoscope, which will serve as a basis for securing funding for future projects aimed at exploring and evaluating design modifications using methods similar to those proposed here.
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