OBJECTIVE The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Revised Lifting Equation (RNLE) was adapted to derive recommended weight limits (RWLs) for pregnant workers and to develop corresponding guidelines for clinicians. BACKGROUND In the past three decades there has been a large increase in the number of women employed outside the home and remaining in the workforce during...

OBJECTIVES Repetitive manual handling tasks account for a substantial portion of work-related injuries. However, few studies report endurance time in repetitive manual handling tasks. Consequently, there is little guidance to inform expected work time for repetitive manual handling tasks. We aimed to investigate endurance time and oxygen consumption of a repetitive lift and carry task using lin...

This study investigates the effects of the number of interpolation points on the prediction accuracy of segment angle trajectory during lifting. Ten participants performed various lifting tasks while a motion tracking system recorded their movements. Two-point through ten-point equal time-spaced segment angles extracted from major segment trajectory data captured by the motion tracking system w...

Participants lifted a canister by its handle while balancing a ball on the lid. Experiment 1 allowed object rotation prior to lifting. A lifting comfort zone was measured by the variability in object orientation at lift; its size depended on the object mass and required task precision. The amount of prelift rotation correlated with the resulting change in lifting capability, as measured for dif...

Nursing aides are particularly susceptible to manual handling injuries because they have the primary responsibility for heavy lifting. The aim of this study was to determine why a specific group of nursing aides have the highest manual handling injury rate in their hospital. The study investigated the adequacy of the manual handling training program, knowledge of manual handling, mechanical aid...

OBJECTIVES To quantify the variability in lifting motions, trunk moments, and spinal loads associated with repeated lifting exertions and to identify workplace factors that influence the biomechanical variability. DESIGN Measurement of trunk dynamics, moments and muscle activities were used as inputs into EMG assisted model of spinal loading. BACKGROUND Traditional biomechanical models assu...

A well known question mooted in biomechanics is how the central nerves system manages the body posture during various tasks. A 5DOF biomechatronical model of human body subjected to simulate the manual lifting task of humanoid robot. Simulation process is based on optimization approach named predictive dynamics using inverse dynamics. An objective function in term of ankle torques during liftin...

We developed an evidence-based practice guideline to support occupational safety and health (OSH) professionals in assessing the risk due to lifting and in selecting effective preventive measures for low back pain (LBP) in the Netherlands. The guideline was developed at the request of the Dutch government by a project team of experts and OSH professionals in lifting and work-related LBP. The re...

Weight of the load and its characteristics is considered to be the important risk factor for low back disorders (LBD) among manual materials handlers. Determining weight of the load and the amount of load a person can lift is important in minimizing the incidence of LBD. Among various methods like isometric, isoinertial and isokinetic, isoinertial approach of lifting evaluation is best as it is...