이승 보조 돌봄 작업의 수동 돌봄(Manual Care)과 로봇 돌봄(Robot-aided Care)의 작업부하 비교를 위한 작업부담 평가체계 개발

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this study was to develop an assessment system for quantitatively comparing the workloads of manual care (MC) and robot-aid care (RC) of the care jobs.<BR>Background: Due to the rapid aging of Korea, the demand for human resources for elderly care tasks has been rapidly increased. Caregivers taking care of the elderly have been under high physical and mental stress due to various types of care work. Recently, many care robots using the technology of the 4th Industrial Revolution have been proposed as a solution to reduce caregiver’s load. However, there is still insufficient research to evaluate the physical and mental load relief effects of caregivers through comprehensive assessment.<BR>Method: The upper index (physical and mental loads) and the lower indexes of each upper index were determined through the literature survey and 42 ergonomic experts’ opinions. Ergonomics experts and caregivers also conducted the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to determine weights of the upper and lower indexes. Two task types (Bed to Chair and Chair to Bed) and two care types (Manual care and Robot-aid care) were performed to estimate the final work load scores based on the task types and care types in this study.<BR>Results: The results of the AHP analysis showed that the physical load was higher than the mental load for elderly caring tasks. Muscle load was the highest work stress in the physical load, followed by subjective body and posture loads. Safety stress was the most in the mental load, followed by task-difficulty stress and emotional stress, respectively. Robot-aided care showed a lower final workload score, including physical and mental load scores, than manual care in both types of tasks (Bed to Chair, Chair to Bed).<BR>Conclusion: A workload assessment system was developed by selecting assessment indexes of physical and mental loads that reflect the characteristics of transfer assistive care. It was noted that the physical and mental loads might be reduced in robot-aided care compared to manual care based on this study.<BR>Application: The workload assessment system can be used to quantitatively evaluate the reduction of workloads for applying different types of manual care and robot-aided care systems in elderly care work.