Using Semi Immersive Virtual Environments to Reduce Lower Back Pain: Visual, Auditory and Pseudo-haptic Feedback

Back pain is a common result of improper lifting technique. Lower back pain and injuries attributed to manual lifting activity continue to be one of the major occupational health and safety issues. The importance of training is crucial to prevent lower back injury. However, providing training alone has only a limited potential for the prevention of back injury. Therefore, this book provides techniques to improve lifting performance in Virtual Environments and suggest guideline on training requirement. Virtual Reality have a potential to improve manual lifting techniques as training can be done with virtual feedback given in real time to monitor human error. Three types of feedback are studied: visual feedback, auditory feedback and pseudo-haptic feedback. The book is useful for professionals in Virtual Reality and Ergonomics fields, or anyone else who may be considering utilizing Virtual Reality to train people in performing new task.

Dr. Faieza graduated in B. Eng. (Hons.) Mechanical Engineering in 1995 from University of Bradford, UK. She obtained her PhD in 2006 in the area of Virtual Reality from Cardiff University, UK. Her research interests include Virtual Reality, Human Computer Interface and Ergonomics.