It's All in the Wrist

“Many projects I started years ago, as well as more recently, have come together to make this the most fun I have ever had doing research,” Hallbeck said.

Hallbeck, director of the Distal Upper Limb Laboratory, became enamored with physical ergonomics while an undergraduate student at Iowa State. “I enjoy solving technical puzzles and interacting with people,” she said. Industrial engineers specialize in manufacturing, management, operations research or ergonomics. Often referred to as human factors engineers, ergonomists strive to make workplaces and management systems better for people.

Hallbeck’s research focus is the distal upper limb, the area from the neck to the end of the fingertips. She studies the movement of joints, such as the wrist and hand, through force, or torque, measurements. “I really enjoy all the facets of upper limb ergonomics,” she said. “Hand use can range from strong or coarse to nimble, fine and precise, so there is always variety in the tasks I study and try to analyze.”

And she’s taken that passion for her research halfway around the world to Sweden where she continues to work with colleagues at the National Institute for Working Life on such cumulative trauma disorders as carpel tunnel syndrome (caused by repetitive motion) and cervo-brachial disorders (problems in the neck and shoulders that arise, for example, from computer use). The team expects to develop guidelines for computer usage that will help lessen the number of workplace injuries. “I always enjoy going to Sweden,” she said. “The challenges of the research and the long bright days in a window-filled office make the time fly by.”

Additional research in Sweden—analyzing such industrial tasks as aiming a drill at a specific spot or a nut-runner at a nut on a car—has proven useful for a project Hallbeck is working on with several University of Nebraska–Lincoln students and Dr. Dmitry Oleynikov of the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Jonathon Morse, Sridhar Chintapalli, Kathryn Doné, Lawton Verner, and Allison DiMartino, all students in engineering, are working with Hallbeck and Oleynikov to redesign a laparoscopic tool used in surgery. A less invasive procedure that uses smaller tools, laparoscopy requires smaller incisions, allowing patients to recover faster. The tools currently being used, however, are far from perfect.

Between 8 and 12 percent of surgeons complain about shoulder pain after performing laparoscopic surgery, largely because the handle is unwieldy and difficult to operate, said Morse. In addition, the forceps, which are used inside the body, can’t articulate; they can only grasp. “The current state of technology allows us to do intricate surgery with these tools but the tools are rigid and lack the refinement of the hand,” said Oleynikov. “We are hoping to create a tool that allows the surgeon to use the handle part of the tool more naturally and that has more flexibility on the end that does the work.” Oleynikov said the preliminary results look promising. “This is an exciting new development, but there is a great deal of work ahead,” he said.

Hallbeck also is collaborating with Greg Bashford, assistant professor of biological systems engineering, on testing the effects of grip force on wrist range of motion. Their research has netted a grant from the NIOSH Heartland Center for Occupational Health and Safety. And earlier this year, Hallbeck and a former student were issued a patent for the redesign of a clamp handle on an industrial tool.

Hallbeck is thrilled with what’s happening. “The research I did in Sweden, the follow-up research on aiming we’ve done at UNL and the research on the tool end made the Layman proposal successful and will, hopefully, make the project attractive to the National Institutes of Health,” she said.

For more information go to http://www.engr.unl.edu/~ergolab and http://www.unmc.edu/mis/.