姿勢是由身體各個肢段在空間中相對位置所構成，當身體處在好
的姿勢時，身體肌肉不會額外的以更多力量去維持身體平衡。然而在工業化的社會裡，卻有越來越多的現代人因為習慣性姿勢不良造成身體頸部、背部，甚至關節損傷或疼痛的症狀。2005 年成功大學醫學工程研究所發展出一套可攜式的姿勢監控系統，此系統使用Flex sensor 進行人體姿勢變化的量測並透過聲音警示來提醒錯誤姿勢。然而此儀器的仍存在許多的問題，例如：可靠度並不高以及False-alarm的誤判現象，導致系統無法實際量測人體姿勢。本研究針對系統的可靠度進行提升改良，消除False-alarm，並將改良過後的姿勢監控系統實際應用在人體身上進行長時間姿勢訓練。本研究首先將Flex sensor做一系列的特性測試，從測試結果發現Flex sensory 在使用前必須要彎折至3000 次以上才達到穩定，在此狀態下Flex sensor 之敏感度會被提升，對於姿勢變化的量測可以正確反應出其變化情形。另外，本研究除了重新設計系統軟硬體之外並定義出系統校正曲線，使系統精確度在合理的量測範圍，最後將改良過後之姿勢監控系統實際經過穩定度測試，確定False-alarm 不再發生。在系統評估上，本研究選取了六名男性受測者處，在坐姿下佩帶此監控系統進行效能測試，從測試結果知受測者會因為警示聲音的提醒而減少錯誤姿勢的發生。本研究更進一步對一名男性受測者進行長時間姿勢訓練，從『單位時間內錯誤姿勢發生時數』及『姿勢修正次數』兩種評估指標可知，受測者在進行姿勢訓練過後(連續5 天每天至少3 小時)，身體能夠開始維持在好的姿勢，已達到姿勢監控系統之設計目的，然而此系統還需要更多的受測者進行測試，方能進一步的證實其效用。

The posture is defined as the relative orientations among body segments. The human body can be balanced with less muscle effort under good posture. On the other hand, people would suffer neck or back pain as well as hurting of the body joints due to poor posture. In 2005, a Portable Posture Monitoring System (PMS) was developed at Institute of Biomedical Engineering NCKU. This system use Flex sensor to monitor human posture changing, and alarm the user to correct him/her poor posture by biofeedback. However, the reliability of this system is insufficient which makes it difficult to perform field evaluation. The aim of this research was to improve the reliability of the PMS: eliminate the false-alarm, and using the improved PMS to perform long-term human posture training. In the improvement of PMS, through a series of Flex sensor calibrations, the result showed that the Flex sensor should undergo at least 3k pre-bending cycles before use. With these pre-bending cycles, the sensitivity of the Flex sensor can be increased which reflex the human posture changing more precisely. Additional, both the hardware and software of the PMS were redesigned and calibration curve was obtained. With this improved PMS, six male subjects were selected to take the short term PMS functional evaluation with sitting posture. The result showed that, with the biofeedback, the PMS can help subjects to correct their poor posture. Further a male subject was selected to take the long-term posture training. Based on two indexes, the Duration of Poor Posture per hour and Frequency of Posture Correcting, it was identified that the PMS could help this subject to maintain a longer period of good posture after five-day (3 hr/day) of training. Further evaluations of this PMS are required to confirm its reliability especially with more subjects under daily activities.

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