Musculoskeletal Sonography & Occupational Performance Laboratory

Experiencing increased #stress while #workingfromhome due to #COVID19? Results from a national survey conducted by our research lab found that, among other lifestyle factors, having an infant or toddler may negatively impact physical/mental #wellbeing when #workingfromhome; yet, teenagers may have a positive impact on well-being when working at home. Additional shifts in work expectations and time spent at a computer workstation were noted as significant factors. Read this brief interview with our collaborator Burcin Becerik-Gerber from the CENTIENTS- Center for Intelligent Environments regarding our findings, which can be read in full in a recently published article in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (link to full study in comments).

Photo credit: Yoko Ellie Fukumura

Congratulations to MSOP Lab alumn Mark Hardison on receiving a $3.25M grant from HRSA to support diversity, equity, and inclusion programming for OT students at the University of New Mexico!

Brief mindfulness in the form of a body scan at the start of a hand therapy session reduces anxiety, preparing clients to engage in interventions. Mindfulness and sonographic biofeedback can also reduce a client's overall stress response across the therapy session. Read more about this foundational work in our recently published manuscript: https://journals.sagepub.com//full/10.1177/1758998320930752... #mindfulness #handtherapy #occupationaltherapy

Working from home due to COVID-19? Was the transition to a home office easy or challenging? Have you noticed improvements or declines in your health since transitioning to work from home? If you can spare 10-minutes, I'd love to hear about your experience by completing the brief, anonymous survey linked below. Our research is exploring the impact of physical and social environments at home on worker health, well-being, productivity so that we can build better preventive and... supportive technologies and interventions. Please share the link with anyone you may know who is also working at/from home: https://usc.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_7OHXH2ZN11a5sTb #workplacehealth #workplacewellbeing #workplacementalhealth #mentalhealth #wellbeingatwork #covid19research #ergonomics #homeoffice #homeworkers

Are you working, or did you work, from home due to COVID-19? If so, we'd love to hear from you! The MSOP team and our collaborators have been doing some cool work to understand how artificial intelligence can be used to improve the health and wellbeing of workers in office settings. With the shift to working from/at home, we are interested in learning if and such technology may be useful or adapted for use in home settings. We would love for you to complete the brief, anon...ymous survey linked here to gather information on the impacts on health, well-being, and productivity of the built physical environment and social environments at home. I would also be very appreciative if you would share the survey link with anyone in your family, work, and/or social networks who have transitioned to working at home. https://usc.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_7OHXH2ZN11a5sTb

Congratulations to another PhD student, Buwen Yao, on getting her first manuscript published! Her manuscript, Comparing Shape Categorization to Circularity Mea...surement in the Evaluation of Median Nerve Compression Using Sonography was accepted for publication in the Journal of Diagnostic Medical Sonography and is now available online ahead of print: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/8756479319898471 See more

In October, at the American Society of Hand Therapists Annual Conference, Sandy received the first-time author award for her publication in the Journal of Hand ...Therapy entitled, Hand therapy interventions, outcomes, and diagnoses evaluated over the last 10 years: A mapping review linking research to practice. This manuscript was published in the journal last January (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jht.2017.05.018) and was a joint effort among Sandy, Shawn Roll, and a previous OTD resident from our program, Emily Wade. See more

Imagine if your workstation automatically adjusted to promote positive behaviors to reduce stress and promote health while you work - see how we're working with USC CENTIENTS- Center for Intelligent Environments to build the workstation of the future!

Congratulations to MSOP lab PhD candidate, Sandy Takata, on receiving the SDMS Foundation research grant to support her dissertation that will develop a protocol for evaluating the recovery process of flexor tendons in the hand following surgical repair using sonography.

Celebrating 30 Years of Occupational Science at the USC Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy. This brief video describes the value our discipline brings to the understanding of human action/being - Occupation. Watch for the Musculoskeletal Sonography & Occupational Performance Laboratory cameos from Shawn Roll and alumnus Mark Hardison.

Thirty years ago, scholars at the University of Southern California created a new academic discipline, occupational science, focused on studying the benefits of... "occupations" the productive, social and physical activities that people do in the course of their everyday lives. What began in Southern California has grown into an international and multigenerational community of scholars and researchers. Today, the USC Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy looks ahead to the next 30 years of occupational science with Associate Dean and Chair Dr. Grace Baranek, in her own words. Dr. Baranek is a prolific scholar and internationally renowned expert on the sensory features of children with autism spectrum disorder. In her leadership role at USC Chan, she oversees a research enterprise totaling more than $18 million in active, federally funded grants, ensuring that occupational science continues to develop and mobilize knowledge about "real people" in the contexts of their "real lives." Dr. Baranek and our community of scholars celebrate 30 years of OS at the 2019 USC Chan Occupational Science Symposium on Sept. 19 learn more at chan.usc.edu/symposium

Hear a brief description from Dr. Elizabeth Yerxa on the founding of the discipline of Occupational Science 30 years ago at the University of Southern California in the USC Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, with one express purpose of developing science to support the practice of occupational therapy. Happy Birthday, Occupational Science! More videos to come soon!! #Occupation #OccupationalTherapy #occupationalscience

AI in your office desk?? Learn about our vision for the future of offices that we are attempting to create through a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded project that will develop a smart desk to promote comfort, health, and productivity in the office environment. #artificialintellgence #ergonomics #thermal #lighting #NSF #discovery

Other than magnification loupes and indirect vision techniques, there is limited, low-quality evidence for interventions to reduce the high incidence/prevalence of MSK injuries in dental professionals. Read the new MSOP systematic review that is the cover story for the June issue of the Journal of the American Dental Association. #ergonomics #JADA #systematicreview https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1Z6O9f0DA78H

Read about the newest research venture of the MSOP lab - leveraging artificial intelligence within office workstations to enhance health, wellness, and productivity. #ergonomics #research #artificialintelligence