Posture analysis during tooth extraction

TL;DR

This study uses pose estimation to analyze the posture of dental professionals during tooth extraction, aiming to identify key kinematic variables.

Contribution

The paper introduces the use of pose estimation for posture analysis during tooth extraction, a novel application in dental training and practice.

Findings

Right shoulder angles were significantly lower in experienced dentists compared to other groups.

Pose estimation shows potential for objective posture analysis in dental procedures.

The study highlights the importance of posture in preventing musculoskeletal injuries during tooth extraction.

Abstract

Tooth extraction is one of the clinical internship requirements in Japan. Human posture during tooth extraction is important since poor posture can cause failure of the safe operation and musculoskeletal injuries. Only a few studies aimed to evaluate the posture, but most of them used manual or complex measurement methods which can lead to some inconvenient problems such as subjective biases, quantitativeness, and device availability. Thanks to the recent advancement of computer vision and technology, pose estimation has been widely used for kinematic analysis. However, none of the research has been used for posture analysis during tooth extraction.

Therefore, this research aims to analyze posture kinematics during tooth extraction using pose estimation and find key kinematic variables for tooth extraction.

All participants were grouped into three; dental students, young dentists, and experienced dentists. They were asked to perform tooth extraction on a tooth extraction simulator while being video recorded. Pose estimation was used to extract joint locations on recorded videos. Joint angles of interest were calculated based on the extracted joint locations.

Right shoulder angles were significantly lower in the experienced dentists’ group than in other groups,

Which has been pointed out by other research as a crucial point.

Although sample size is a main concern in this study, the result shows that pose estimation can be useful in posture analysis during tooth extraction.

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