Fatigue-related accomodations to lifting coordination patterns

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Manual material handling (MMH) and lifting activities are predominant work tasks in many industrial and health care settings (ie. patient transfer). Current work practices for conducting these activities over a prolonged period are guided by ergonomic and health and safety assessment tools and guidelines that are based on physiological human factors limitations. There is compelling evidence that the effects of prolonged and repetitive exposure to handling even submaximal loads may have an adverse effect on worker safety. However, we do not clearly understand the accommodations workers make to their work techniques when experiencing muscle fatigue. Our research has demonstrated the effects on muscle fatigue and strength recovery when workers are subjected to repeated submaximal workloads while performing sagittal constrained lifting activities. We have also identified differences in coordinated movement patterns in individuals who later developed low back pain at work. The proposed research will investigate the modifications to the upper body and trunk in terms of both muscular and joint motion coordination and their corresponding effect on joint loading patterns associated with performing complex, fatiguing MMH work tasks with an aim to identify worker safety concerns. By understanding fatigue-related influences on work technique in men and women, this research can better guide best work practices, work productivity and worker safety in MMH work.