For people working in the manufacturing industry, repetitive stress injuries can be a major concern. Some of the most common musculoskeletal injuries that come from repeating the same movements over and over are tendonitis and carpal tunnel syndrome. Currently, the best methods for attempting to prevent these injuries involves safety professionals making subjective calls about the risk of certain motions.
However, this method leaves a lot to be desired, and injuries are all too common. A University of Wisconsin-Madison professor believes he has a much more effective solution that involves using computers to analyze videos of hand movements. Computer vision algorithms have been developed that can analyze hand motions and how likely particular motions are to lead to injury.
The professor believes that, in time, workers’ hand movements could be analyzed in just minutes using a smart phone and an app. Smart phones could record a video of a worker and the video could be sent to a cloud-based computer system. From there, an algorithm could analyze the employee’s hand movements and return information about any potential problems with the worker’s hand motions immediately.
If someone is harmed as a result of their job, whether it is due to direct physical injury, repetitive stress injuries or even the development of a medical condition, workers’ compensation may be available to them. Workers’ compensation provides for both lost wages as well as medical coverage. Medical coverage can include the cost of doctor’s appointments, physical therapy and medications. A lawyer could help someone file for these benefits and let them know what levels of compensation they may be able to expect.
