Humanitude care techniques for sit-to-stand assistance: a comparative observational study.

BACKGROUND

Supporting care recipients to actively participate in sit-to-stand movements helps preserve autonomy and self-efficacy while engaging residual physical capacity. Such approaches may reduce caregiver burden and prevent burnout. Humanitude, a person-centred care methodology, includes specific techniques for assisting standing that may promote active involvement of care recipients.

OBJECTIVE

To investigate how sit-to-stand assistance differs between Humanitude-trained caregivers, general nurses, and nursing students, and to examine its effects on the biomechanics and muscle activity of care recipients.

DESIGN

A comparative observational study.

SETTING

Two clinical training rooms in hospitals.

PARTICIPANTS

The study included 59 caregivers (9 Humanitude-trained experts, 40 general nurses, and 10 nursing students) and two simulated care recipients.

METHODS

Each caregiver performed 10 repeated sit-to-stand assistance trials. Biomechanical metrics, including the care recipients' center of mass trajectory, independent weight-bearing ratio, and electromyographic activity of the knee and hip extensors, were measured. Trial data were averaged per pair. Spearman's rank correlation coefficients were calculated to examine the relationship between independent weight-bearing ratio and muscle activity. Additional analyses compared assistance strategies across groups with different levels of independent weight bearing ratio.

RESULTS

Humanitude-trained caregivers facilitated significantly higher independent weight-bearing and hip extensor activity than both general nurses and nursing students, as well as higher knee extensor activity than general nurses. Across all caregivers, the independent weight-bearing ratio was positively correlated with knee extensor activity (Spearman's ρ = .56, 95% CI: 0.36-0.72, p< .001) and hip extensor activity ( ρ = .34, 95% CI: 0.09-0.55, p= .008). Care recipients in higher weight-bearing conditions were assisted by strategies that first prioritized anterior translation of the center of mass closer to the base of support.

CONCLUSIONS

Humanitude-based sit-to-stand assistance promotes greater independent weight bearing and voluntary lower limb muscle activation in care recipients. These findings suggest that Humanitude techniques may enhance functional engagement and provide a biomechanical basis for person-centred nursing care.

REGISTRATION: not registered.