Occupational Neuroergonomics

Oct 26, 2023 · 3 min read

This project spans the assessment of musculoskeletal-injury risk and the planning of ergonomic interventions in physically demanding occupations.

Biomechanical and motor-control analysis of work-related musculoskeletal disorder (WRMD) risk in physically demanding occupations.

This research line applies motor-control theory and biomechanical assessment to occupations where repeated, awkward, or highly constrained postures put workers at risk of musculoskeletal injury — from surgeons performing minimally invasive procedures to physiotherapists and manual material handlers.

Motor control theory as an ergonomics tool

A recurring method across this work is the Uncontrolled Manifold (UCM) hypothesis, a motor-control framework that decomposes joint-angle variability into a task-relevant component (variability that destabilizes performance) and a task-irrelevant component (variability that a well-coordinated system can tolerate, or even use, without compromising the task). Applied to surgeons performing laparoscopic and single-incision laparoscopic surgery, this framework let us quantify upper-body postural variability and show that coordinated co-variation among upper-limb joints actively stabilizes head posture during these tasks — evidence that surgeons’ motor systems build in protective coordination strategies under ergonomically demanding conditions, and a basis for more targeted ergonomics assessments and human-machine interaction design.

My doctoral research extended this motor-control perspective to manual material handling, using dimensionality-reduction techniques to extract and characterize muscle synergies — the coordinated patterns of muscle activation the nervous system uses to simplify control of complex, multi-joint movements — as a way of quantifying motor control quality during physically demanding manual tasks.

From mechanism to occupational risk

Alongside this mechanistic work, we’ve directly assessed WRMD prevalence and mechanical loading in physically demanding professions. In a study of Spanish physiotherapists, we combined a modified Nordic Questionnaire survey with biomechanical modeling of intervertebral compression forces (via 3D Static Strength Prediction Program software) to characterize both the self-reported prevalence of musculoskeletal complaints and the mechanical loading underlying them across four representative professional activities.

Together, these two threads — motor-control-based postural analysis and direct occupational-risk assessment — aim to move ergonomics evaluation beyond simple posture checklists, toward an understanding of how a worker’s nervous system organizes movement under physical constraint, and where that organization breaks down under sustained occupational demand.

Connection to adapted physical education

Although this line of work sits in occupational ergonomics, it shares its central question with my research in adapted physical education and neurorehabilitation: how the nervous system organizes movement under constraint, and how environments, tasks, and interventions can be designed to support it. The constraint here is imposed by task demands and posture — in my work with neurological and developmental populations, it is imposed by injury or disability — but the same motor-control frameworks (the Uncontrolled Manifold hypothesis, muscle synergies) and the same applied goal of redesigning environments and equipment around a person’s actual movement capacity carry directly across both settings.

Publications

Kostas Gianikellis, Andreas Skiadopoulos, Rafael Gutiérrez Horrillo, Miguel Rodal, Juan Alberto Sánchez-Margallo, Francisco M. Sánchez-Margallo (2019). Advanced Ergonomics in Laparoscopic Surgery. Recent Advances in Laparoscopic Surgery.

URL Project DOI

Kostas Gianikellis, Francisco M. Sánchez-Margallo, Andreas Skiadopoulos, Juan A. Sánchez-Margallo, Javier Hermoso De Mendoza Aranda (2015). Head Stabilization during Minimal Invasive Surgery Tasks: An Uncontrolled Manifold Analysis. Procedia Manufacturing. SCImago Q2

URL Project DOI

Kostas Gianikellis, Andreas Skiadopoulos

Corresponding Author

, Carlos Espino Palma, Francisco M. Sánchez-Margallo, José B. Pagador Carrasco, Juan A. Sánchez-Margallo (2014). A method to assess upper-body postural variability in laparoscopic surgery. In 5th IEEE RAS/EMBS International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics.

URL Project DOI

Andreas Skiadopoulos

Corresponding author

, Kostas Gianikellis (2014). Problemas músculo-esqueléticos en los fisioterapeutas. Fisioterapia. SJR: 0.136 (SCImago Q4)

URL Project DOI