Ideal Ergonomical Design for Light Hand Activities in Standing

AIM: To find out ideal ergonomic position for light hand work activities in standing.

Objectives: 1. To find out the co-relation between person's height and distance of the platform for performing hand activities in standing. 2. To find out the common area of pain for three different platforms for different distances.

Purpose of Study: The purpose of the study is to know whether hand activities which are involved in standing are causing any musculoskeletal discomfort or not.

Methodology: a) Study Design: Cross sectional study, b) Sample Population: PCMC Area&Sample Size: 100, c) Sampling Technique: Random sampling, d) Inclusion Criteria: Healthy subjects (both males&females) between the of 25-50 years are selected&further divided in 4 groups.

Exclusion Criteria: 1.Acute injury to back 2. Infection (unhealed / healing ) 3. Congenital deformities 4. Spinal upper and lower limb deformities 5. Neurological deficit e) Outcome Measures : VAS, Timing, Repetitions and Area of pain f) Data Collection&Analysis: ANOVA and POST HOC TEST is used for seeing correlation between person's height and distance of the platform for performing hand activities in standing.

Results: a) Subjects in group 1, performed better at distance of 4 inch on 30&32 inch platforms (p values are 0.000&0.032), b) Subjects in group 2, performed better at distance of 4 inch on 32 inch platform (p value 0.032), c) Subjects in group 3, performed better at distance of 4 inch on 32&34 inch platforms ( p values are 0.032&0.690), d) For 4th group people no platform was found to be comfortable.

Conclusion: The study concluded that,light handwork activities if performed at waist level and at nearest distance;activities can be performed comfortably without causing much of musculoskeletal discomfort.The commonest area of pain noticed was lowback pain.

Clinical Significance : The study can be implemented while designing a platform for hand activities.The height of platform at which the activities are going to be performed should be at subject's waist level.