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Musculoskeletal disorders in podiatry & chiropody professionals - HSL/2006/60
From the Health & Safety Executive (UK)
Friday, August 11th, 2006
Quote:
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
OBJECTIVES
The principal objectives of this project were to:
•
Identify and assess the risks of musculoskeletal ill health within working
podiatrists.
•
Identify significant potential improvements to the physical and organisational working environments of podiatrists through:
-
Informal observations of, and interviews with podiatrists.
-
Video recording of podiatrists' working posture.
-
Posture analysis using Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA) and
Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA).
-
Research into possible equipment solutions to improve podiatrists physical and organisational working environments.
-
Making recommendations.
MAIN FINDINGS
The podiatrist’s work involves a combination of visually demanding work, constant access to the client’s lower limbs with occasional forceful application while manipulating the clients lower limbs. However the posture assumed by podiatrists is often fixed, with certain tasks requiring very accurate hand movements and hand eye coordination. The physical positions of this type of work varied greatly with each client and dramatically affected the podiatrists posture. The types of musculoskeletal disorder
risk factors observed varied from client to client included:
•
Poor working postures
•
The duration of the treatment involving static postures
•
Amount of repetition of movements
•
Changes in the working environment
•
Forces applied to the patients foot
•
Psychosocial issues
The varying factors were more prominent with domiciliary visits because within clinics
podiatrists are able to control some of these factors.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Recommendations are made for reducing the musculoskeletal ill health arising from podiatrists working practices. These are mainly in the form of improving the podiatrists' knowledge of postural risks and health through training, redesigning of workplace environments to reduce the occurrence and extent of the uptake of unhealthy postures and the increased use of modern equipment, especially posture aids
Thank you for hightlighting this report. How I've chuckled, and yes I also sit close to a fire and leave with thermal overload. It is very accurate and made me think about position in both domicillary and clinical settings.
Occupational & Health Problems in Podiatrists
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