News

NSF Grant Awarded to Explore Artificial Intelligence in the Workplace ⟩
August 15, 2018

MSOP Lab Director, Shawn Roll, is a Co-PI of a newly funded research grant from the National Science Foundation. Dr. Roll will be collaborating with Drs. Burcin Becerik and Gale Lucas to explore the use of an intelligent workstation (i.e., desk) in promoting health, wellness, and productivity for office workers. Together, the team envisions the emergence of a genuine partnership and coevolution of workers and their workstations. The grant aims to design an intelligent workstation that learns worker preferences and patterns, and then will coevolve with the human through an ongoing, bidirectional process of sensing, feedback and learning to adjust postural, thermal and visual conditions at the workstation and moderate poor behaviors. 

In the U.S., there are 81 million office workers who spend 75% or more of their day working at a desk. Unfortunately, increased daily sitting time is linked to significant health conditions, including cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. Multiple other health-related issues arise in these workers due to poor ergonomic habits. Health conditions are further exacerbated by building-level control of environmental conditions, such a lighting and temperature. The team hopes that establishing symbiosis between the workstation and the worker will lead to improved environmental conditions and worker behaviors. Read more about the project ⟩

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MSOP Lab Provides Five Presentations at AOTA ⟩
May 21, 2018

The MSOP Lab team provided at total of five scientific presentations at this year’s American Occupational Therapy Association conference in Salt Lake City. Sandy Takata, Mark Hardison, and Shawn Roll presented findings and updates on various research projects that are underway in the lab, including information on integrating mind-body techniques into hand therapy, developing a video observation technique to identify risk for musculoskeletal disorders in dental hygienists, and evaluating anatomical structures within the carpal tunnel using sonography.

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Mark Hardison Receives Research Grant ⟩
October 20, 2017

Congratulations to PhD Candidate and MSOP Lab Member, Mark Hardison, who recently received a $3,000 research grant from the California Foundation for Occupational Therapy.  This grant, titled “Integrating Mindfulness-Based Interventions with Outpatient Rehabilitation in Hand Therapy,” will support Mark’s dissertation, which aims to better understand the psychosocial needs of individuals receiving hand therapy and will evaluate the integration of mindfulness-based activities as part of the recovery process.  Specifically, Mark is examining client experiences and the effects on care do to the use of brief, guided mindfulness meditations on a weekly basis immediately prior to participating in therapy sessions combined with resources to support continued use of mindfulness practices outside of the clinic. This preliminary work is an important foundational step toward understanding how to best integrate mindfulness-based interventions into hand therapy to maximize the recovery process following a musculoskeletal injury.  Congratulations, Mark!

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Poster Receives First Place at SDMS Conference ⟩
October 14, 2017

Our team has begun evaluating the dynamic movement of the median nerve in the carpal tunnel during active finger motion involved in gripping. With the support of Ariana Cristino, an undergraduate volunteer, we established reliability for our analysis protocol and gathered preliminary findings in 51 of our 159 participants. These findings for changes in the shape of the nerve, as well as the direction and amount of movement of the nerve during grip were presented in a poster at the 2017 Annual Conference of the Society of Diagnostic Medical Sonography. The poster (photo below), presented by Dr. Roll and Jennifer Alberts, RDMS, received first place in the sonographer poster competition.

The protocol developed for this preliminary analysis is now being deployed across our full data-set to identify metrics that can be used as potential risk factors in our longitudinal modeling of the development of carpal tunnel syndrome.

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Introducing Hand Therapists to Sonographic Imaging ⟩
October 12, 2017

Along with USC Keck Hospital Hand Therapists Aimee Aguillon and Janice Rocker, Dr. Roll and PhD Student Sandy Takata (pictured above l-r) provided a pre-conference institute at the 2017 annual conference of the American Society of Hand Therapists in Anaheim, CA — all the while sporting Micky & Minnie Mouse ears!  At this four-hour, hands-on workshop, hand therapists were introduced to the use of musculoskeletal sonography and its many applications for enhancing assessment and intervention for hand therapy clients. Attendees received multiple hours of hands-on practice, learning how to use sonography and exploring the many structures in the hands that can be seen. The attendees even got a chance to see some of their own pathologies using the imaging!

Click on the links below for a few short clips of the hands-on sessions:

ASHT Hands-On Sonography — Dr. Roll ⟩

ASHT Hands-On Sonography — Janice Rocker, OTD, CHT ⟩

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