Working Postures And Movements

In most industries, musculoskeletal injuries are the most common work-related reason for employee absences. These injuries are often caused by static postures or repetitive movements that have to be maintained for many hours a day, such as intensive use of data entry devices, assembly work, parts inspection, equipment maintenance, manual materials handling, machinery operations, and vehicle operation, among others. In order to prevent such injuries, occupational health professionals, ergonomists, production engineers, and product designers need to know how to evaluate postures and movements, and understand how these are determined by the work environment, as well as what design tools are available to achieve less stressful working postures and movements.Working Postures and Movements describes many internationally accepted evaluation tools applicable to postures and movements in the work environment. Renowned researchers from around the world have brought together the latest scientific knowledge describing the anthropometry, biomechanics, physiology, psychophysics, and human perceptual-motor control basis for posture and movement assessment related to all the major body segments. The book addresses seating concepts, hand tool and pedal designs, foot-floor interfaces, digital human models for computer-aided design and engineering, and work organization (task duration, breaks, handling frequency) as they affect human performance and musculoskeletal injury reduction. Professionals responsible for identifying and improving conditions in the industries where such workplace injuries occur will find this volume to be a handy sourcebook, while teachers and students will find it to be a valuable reference.

Every year workers' low-back, hand, and arm problems lead to time away from jobs and reduce the nation's economic productivity. The connection of these problems to workplace activities-from carrying boxes to lifting patients to pounding computer keyboards-is the subject of major disagreements among workers, employers, advocacy groups, and researchers. Musculoskeletal Disorders and the Workplace examines the scientific basis for connecting musculoskeletal disorders with the workplace, considering people, job tasks, and work environments. A multidisciplinary panel draws conclusions about the likelihood of causal links and the effectiveness of various intervention strategies. The panel also offers recommendations for what actions can be considered on the basis of current information and for closing information gaps. This book presents the latest information on the prevalence, incidence, and costs of musculoskeletal disorders and identifies factors that influence injury reporting. It reviews the broad scope of evidence: epidemiological studies of physical and psychosocial variables, basic biology, biomechanics, and physical and behavioral responses to stress. Given the magnitude of the problem-approximately 1 million people miss some work each year-and the current trends in workplace practices, this volume will be a must for advocates for workplace health, policy makers, employers, employees, medical professionals, engineers, lawyers, and labor officials.

In most industries, musculoskeletal injuries are the most common work-related reason for employee absences. These injuries are often caused by static postures or repetitive movements that have to be maintained for many hours a day, such as intensive use of data entry devices, assembly work, parts inspection, equipment maintenance, manual materials handling, machinery operations, and vehicle operation, among others. The book addresses seating concepts, hand tool and pedal designs, foot-floor interfaces, digital human models for computer-aided design and engineering, and work organization (task duration, breaks, handling frequency) as they affect human performance and musculoskeletal injury reduction. Professionals responsible for identifying and improving conditions in the industries where such workplace injuries occur will find this volume to be a handy sourcebook, while teachers and students will find it to be a valuable reference.

This book covers how to analyze awkward working postures, particularly of the spine and lower limbs, in specific groups exposed. The methods covered suggests how to evaluate the postures correctly, taking account of the duration and sequence of the tasks involved, even in very complex scenarios where workers are involved with multiple tasks and work cycles varying from day to day. Excel spreadsheets located on the authors’ website (www.epmresearch.org) have been developed to gather, condense, and automatically process the data. The tools serve to implement the strategy for calculating risk associated with exposure to awkward postures, i.e. the TACOS method. Included are 5 case studies which include physiotherapists, workers from construction, archaeological digs, vineyards, and kindergarten teachers. Features Provides a coherent definition of what the study of awkward postures is Clarifies and explains which parameters need to be detected and analyzed for the study of the working postures Defines the phases of a proper organizational study (e.g. tasks, postures, duration, and how often the postures will last) in the working cycle Presents a new and original risk calculation model for awkward postures, with particular attention to the study of the spine and the lower limbs Offers a free excel spreadsheet located on the authors' website which implements the strategy for calculating risk associated with exposure to awkward postures

This book is based on an international symposium on the Ergonomics of Working Postures, at Zadar. It explores fairly specific areas of occupational ergonomics with the purpose of drawing together major current trends.

Work related muskuloskeletal disorders, or WMSDs, have become a major problem in many industrialised countries. It was previously thought that the number of repetitive jobs would decline in the future, leading to a decline in the number of WMSDs: however, this has not been the case. Some government agencies expect WMSDs to be one of the major work-related disorders into the new Millenium. This book contains evaluated scientific information that will help prevent WMSDs, derived from original research and field experience via a Canadian Government sponsored project on work related musculoskeletal disorders. The expert group's goal was twofold: the first objective was to examine the work relatedness of WMSDs in the light of existing literature, and the second was to explore and synthesize information, avenues and approaches that could help in the prevention of WMSDS.