ErgoRehab Inc. – Health Ergonomic Glossary
 

 

  

The Need for Health Ergonomic Programs
Ergonomics Defined
Health Ergonomics Overview
Health Ergonomic Programs
The Job Task Analysis
Ergonomic Risk Factors
Cumulative Trauma Disorders

The Need for Health Ergonomic Programs:

Each year, nearly seven million job-related injuries and illnesses cost U.S. employers $171 billion dollars, $50 billion dollars of which is spent on musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). The need for implementation of prevention strategies to curtail the cost of disability has led to an increased ergonomic awareness for businesses today. Recognizing the importance of ergonomic guidelines to help reduce the rising costs of disability, OSHA has released new voluntary Ergonomic Standards designed to reduce the number of workplace injuries and illnesses. Despite the controversy surrounding OSHA’s previous versions of their Ergonomic Standard, it has raised the awareness of employers and stimulated initiatives to reduce the cost of workplace disabilities.

The rising costs of work-related injuries and illnesses, coupled with OSHA's Ergonomic Standard, create an increased awareness of ergonomic issues and injury prevention. The opportunities for occupational health and rehabilitation professionals to expand their capabilities and capitalize on this increased demand has never been greater. Companies are striving for ways of reducing the cost of work-related injuries and looking for occupational health and rehabilitation professionals for job analysis, return-to-work programs and injury prevention programs.

Ergonomics Defined:

Ergonomics is defined by the latin root words “ergos” meaning “work”, and “nomos” meaning “the study of”.  Ergonomics is “the study of work”.  We study work to ensure worker safety and to maximize worker efficiency.  In the process of studying work, we need to answer these questions: In an instant- can a person do this job one time?  Will it cause injury? Does a person fit the workplace (body size and shape)?  Is the person strong enough?  If the work is performed over a period of time, seconds to minutes, is there fatigue of injury?  If the work is performed over a period of time, months to years, is there fatigue or injury?   There are six fundamentals of ergonomics to address these questions.  The six fundamental variable of work are: workload, physiologic response to work, anthropometrics, biomechanics, human factors engineering and work organization.

Ergonomics is a multidisciplinary science that evaluates the physical and cognitive demands of work, while obtaining personal and organizational production goals.  Ergonomics is designing and improving the workplace, workstation and tools and procedures used to perform the work, in order to better fit an individual to the work and ensure a safe and productive workplace.  Ergonomics is also controlling wasted errors, wasted motions and managing material quality.

Health Ergonomics Overview:

ErgoRehab's unique approach to rehabilitation education provides the tools necessary to strengthen your clinical skills and to be a more effective rehabilitation professional. By focusing on the interaction between occupational demands and human capacities, ErgoRehab's continuing education and certification programs in Health Ergonomics go beyond traditional ergonomic concepts.

Health Ergonomics is based on the interrelationship between the science of ergonomics, human physiology, and pathology.  Healthcare professionals possess the knowledge base and training in human physiology and the mechanisms of injury that are necessary to assess the incidence and severity of injuries and illnesses in the workplace.  Their knowledge and experience gives healthcare professionals the inherent abilities to optimize work capacity of both healthy and injured workers.  Health Ergonomic Specialists use their knowledge and training in Health Ergonomics to safely match the demands of work to the capacity of the worker.

Health Ergonomics Programs:

A Health Ergonomic Program applies the concepts of Health Ergonomics to injury prevention, production enhancement, and error reduction strategies in the workplace. A Health Ergonomic Program is a systematic process of identifying factors that contribute to the development of Work-related MusculoSkeletal Disorders (WMSDs) in the workplace and ways in which they can be reduce or eliminated.  Successful Health Ergonomic Programs will:

  • Ensure a safe, healthful and productive workplace.
  • Minimize Employee turnover and work-related injuries.
  • Enhance worker performance.
  • Provide a method to prioritize injury prevention resources. 
  • Increase worker satisfaction.
  • Decrease workers’ compensation costs.
  • Provide organizational structure to effectively reduce workers' compensation claims.
  • Provide a strategic plan for reducing ergonomic risk factors that is compliant with OSHA and NIOSH  standards.

The Job Task Analysis:

The goal of the Job Task Analysis (JTA) is to provide information that will facilitate a safe and healthful workplace by minimizing fatigue and enhancing worker performance.  The Job Task Analysis provides an objective detailed report of the assessment of health ergonomic risk and recommendations for improving specific workplace conditions.

The applications for the Job Task Analysis include: returning an injured worker back to work, creating functional job descriptions, implementing an ongoing ergonomic program or developing an injury prevention program.  In any application, the JTA provides a logical, structured process based on the multidisciplinary sciences of ergonomics, human physiology and pathology.

 The Health Ergonomics Job Task Analysis process provides a foundation upon which health ergonomic risk factors can be identified and rated based on evaluation and comparison to acceptable guidelines and standards.  The outcome of the Health Ergonomics JTA is to identify risk factors that may lead or contribute to the development of work-related musculoskeletal disorders and offer recommendations for modifications to reduce the risk factors to within acceptable levels.

Ergonomic Risk Factors:

Ergonomic risk factors may cause, aggravate or precipitate Cumulative Trauma Disorders in the workplace.  Examples of ergonomic risk factors include; repetition, forceful exertion, temperature, awkward postures and work organization factors.

Specific causes of Cumulative Trauma Disorders are often difficult to determine, because many risk factors may interact simultaneously to bring about or aggravate a musculoskeletal condition or injury.  The Health Ergonomic approach provides the tools necessary to identify and quantify various ergonomic risk factors as well as the means and methods to eliminate or reduce ergonomic risk factors to within acceptable exposure levels.  This comprehensive approach to workplace injury reduction ensures effective workplace injury management.  Health Ergonomic implementations and programs are consistent with OSHA, NIOSH and the ACGIH. 

Cumulative Trauma Disorders:

Cumulative Trauma Disorders (CTDs) have become one of the fastest growing categories of work-related illnesses in the past decade.  The term CTD is used in the scientific and occupational literature in the United States to indicate a group of work-related musculoskeletal and peripheral nerve disorders associated with job tasks that include exposure to ergonomic risk factors such as repetitive and/or forceful activity.  CTD is an umbrella term describing specific diagnoses of the musculoskeletal system with a common etiology.  The various diagnoses of CTD involve damage to the tendons, tendon sheaths, muscles, joints, blood vessels, and peripheral nerves of the upper extremities.

Other terms that are used to describe this disorder include repetitive strain injuries (RSIs), repetitive motion syndrome (RMS) and overuse syndrome (OS).  By their very name, these terms imply that repetitive work is the sole cause of these disorders.  Although it is one of the major contributing factors, there are others factors that have proven to contribute to the development of these disorders.  Vibrating tools, forceful exertions, temperature extremes, static postures and motions in awkward or extreme postures are other important ergonomic hazards that have been associated with the development of CTDs.