Injury risks and affecting factors of spinal loads for caregiver’s manual patient handling tasks / 医用生物力学

Objective To assess the injury risks and affecting factors of spinal loads at L5/S1 joint for caregivers during manual patient-handling tasks, so as to find a suitable handling way to effectively reduce such risks. Methods Kinetic data were collected from nine female caregivers performing six patient handling tasks on three agent ‘patients’ with different weight. Peak L5/S1 force was calculated based on a multi-segment three-dimensional model to investigate the characteristics of injury risks, and the correlations between the peak L5/S1 force and six affecting factors were specifically analyzed. Results Peak compression of the tasks all exceeded the safe thresholds of 3.4 kN; Peak anterior-posterior force for those repositioning tasks were above the threshold of 0.5 kN. Different tasks showed different biomechanical characteristics for risk of injury and affecting factors, and there was a significant correlation between the L5/S1 loads and the moving distance of center of gravity, and the ground reaction force as well (P<0.01). Conclusions Manual patient handling tasks could cause different injury risks by high loads on spinal low back. Decreasing the range of motion of the whole body and avoiding jerk movement during the patient handling tasks would help caregiver to reduce the injury risks.

Sociomedical Survey on the Occupational Low Back Injuries of the Some Workers in Pusan Area / 예방의학회지

This survey was performed to obtain the basic information for the prevention and management of occupational low back injury(LBI). The subjects of this survey were 952 workers(male, 892;female, 60) who had taken occupational LBI in some industries of Pusan area from January 1 to December 31, 1991. Observation period was 2.6 years from the beginning to the end of medical treatment. The obtained results were summarized as follows; 1. The proportion of LBI workers was 15.9% of the workers who had taken any occupational injuries and 0.32% of all workers in this surveyed area. 2. 8.0% of the workers had taken LBI on the 1st day of employment and 55.2% of the workers were within one year, 91.4% of the workers were within 10 years according to cumulative frequency distribution. 3. Handling of heavy objects was the most common cause of LBI(32.0%) and fall down(26.9%) and slip down(16.3%) were the next in order. 4. The most common causes of both lumbar sprain and HNP were handling of heavy objects and that of lumbar fracture was fall down. 5. The mean duration for medical treatment of LBI workers was 143 days. 6. The total direct compensation cost for LBI workers was 6,736 million Won and the proportion of medical, resting, disability compensation costs were 25.0%, 37.0%, 38.0% respectively. 7. The percentages of retreated workers and disabled workers were 11.9%(113 persons) and 22.9%(218 persons) of total LBI workers respectively.

An Epidemiological Aspect of Low Back Injuries in Some Industries of Pusan Area / 대한정형외과학회잡지

An epidemiological investigation of 878 workers(male 812, female 66) who suffered from low back injury(LBI) in some workplace of Pusan city from January 1 to December 31 in 1992 was carried out to obtain the various informations of the prevention and management in the occupational low back pain(LBP). The results were summarized as follows: 1. The mean age of LBP workers was 39.3±10.4(18-67) in male 48.5±12.6(21-69) in female workers. And the most common age groups were the 4th decade in male and the 6th decade in female workers. 2. In the frequency distribution of LBI according to the kind of industry, manufacturing industry was most frequent, and industry of construction, transport-storage-communication were the next in order. Among manufacturing industry, LBI of metallic products and machinery was the most frequent. 3. The occupational frequency of LBP was technical worker, monotonous worker, driver of automobile, driver of heavy equipment and office worker in order. 4. The cumulative percentage of LBI was 6.9% at the first day of employment and 90.8% until 10 years after employment. 5. The mean working duration from employment to onset of injury was 1081 days(about 2.9 years) and the working duration according to occupation was the shortest in driver of heavy equipment(502 days) and longest in office worker(1982 days). 6. The careless handling of object was the most common cause of LBI, and fall down, slip down, collision and traffic accidents were the next in order. 7. The most common cause of LBI according to occupation was traffic accident in driver of automobile, fall down in driver of heavy equipment and careless handling of object in office worker respectively. 8. The case of localized LBI were 517(58.9%) and the cases of LBI combined with other injuries, such as head, neck, trunk, arm or leg, were 361(41.1%) 9. Lumbar sprain was the most frequent diagnosis of LBI, and Herniated Nucleus Pulposus(HNP) and lumbar fracture were the next in order. 10. In multiple injuries, LBI combined with multiple body injury was the most frequent, and the next was LBI combined with arm and leg, with trunk, with head and with neck in order. 11. LBI combined with multiple body injury was the main injury in fall down, slip down and traffic accident, and lumbar sprain was the main injury in careless handling of object.