Saku Central Hospital, operated by Nagano Prefectural Federation of Agricultural Cooperatives for Health and Welfare, based at Saku-shi, Nagano Prefecture, has developed a medical instrument to check whether walking postures are causing back and knee pains, in collaboration with a measuring instrument manufacturer in the city.
In front of a computer of data display, Akira Ichikawa (right), Chief Engineer of Saku Central Hospital, is providing a patient wearing a sensing device with guidance on how to walk with a proper posture. (Saku-shi Nagano prefecture)
The new instrument has made it possible for the doctor of the Hospital to instantly find out problems of walking postures of a patient and display them on the screen of a computer by checking the postures with sensors attached on the back and waist of the patient.
These two sensors send information to the computer by detecting up and down movements of various parts of patient’s body, back and forth as well as right and left swings of those parts, and pressures placed respectively by right and left foot on the floor, while a patient walks almost ten meters on the floor.
The spokesperson of the Hospital send a message particularly to farmers and their family members, advising to consult the doctors for maintaining their proper walking postures, by saying “You are apt to hurt their knees and lower backs. But you can prevent themselves from getting worse and avoid knee and back pains by improving your walking postures in daily life.”