Journal
APPLIED ERGONOMICS
Volume 93, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.apergo.2021.103360
Keywords
Musculoskeletal injury; Informal caregiver; Patient handling; Lumbar spine
Categories
Funding
- US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Training Grant [T03OH008847]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
This study found that using a slide sheet when informal caregivers perform patient boosting and turning tasks can reduce erector spinae activity, shoulder elevation, torso angle, and normalized vertical ground reaction force, providing biomechanical benefits.
Manual patient handling tasks put formal and informal caregivers at risk of musculoskeletal injury. Intervention research to reduce risks to informal caregivers is limited. This study examined effects of slide sheet use when individual informal caregivers performed patient boosting and turning tasks. Three methods of slide sheet use and a baseline method (no slide sheet) were compared, to reposition a 70 kg individual. Muscle activity, ground reaction force, posture, and rating of perceived exertion were significantly affected by task method. Erector Spinae activity was reduced in boosting and turning away tasks with the slide sheet. Shoulder elevation, torso angle, and normalized vertical ground reaction force were also reduced with the slide sheet during boosting. The turn towards task was generally not improved with the slide sheet. Overall, using a slide sheet provided biomechanical benefits to individual caregivers performing two common patient handling tasks: boosting and turning patient away from caregiver.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available