Abstract
Background: Load knowledge has been identified as a factor affecting the risk of low back pain (LBP) during symmetric lifting. However, the effects of load knowledge in asymmetric lifting tasks have not been reported yet. The purpose of this study was to investigate the load knowledge influence on lifting biomechanics in asymmetric lifting tasks; Methods: Twenty-four male adults were recruited to complete a psychophysical lifting capacity test and a simulated asymmetric lifting task. The lifting task was set with load knowledge of ‘no knowledge’ (NK), ‘weight known’ (WK), ‘fragile material known’ (FK), and ‘weight and fragile material known’ (WFK) for different lifting load weights. Trunk kinematics and kinetics were collected and analyzed; Results: When fragility information was presented, trunk sagittal flexion acceleration, lateral flexion velocity and acceleration, and average lateral bending moment were significantly lowered at the deposit phase. Lifting a high load weight was found to significantly increase low back sagittal bending moment at the lifting phase and low back moments of all three dimensions at the deposit phase; Conclusions: The decrease of trunk kinematic load suggests that providing material fragility information to workers in asymmetric lifting tasks would be effective in reducing their risk of LBP.
Highlights
Low back pain (LBP) is a worldwide known musculoskeletal disorder
There were significant main effects for lifting load weight at both lifting phase and deposit phase, the effects can be only seen on variables of trunk average sagittal bending moment
We found that load knowledge of material fragility influenced the asymmetric lifting biomechanics at the deposit phase
Summary
Low back pain (LBP) is a worldwide known musculoskeletal disorder. It is commonly seen that people who suffered from LBP routinely performed physically demanding work involving manual lifting tasks [1]. LBP, which was estimated over millions of dollars each year based on a report received from a sample of the USA [5] The cause of this problem was considered to start from the detrimental biomechanical effect and following with psychophysical factors to further deteriorate health [6]. Load knowledge has been identified as a factor affecting the risk of low back pain (LBP) during symmetric lifting. Lifting a high load weight was found to significantly increase low back sagittal bending moment at the lifting phase and low back moments of all three dimensions at the deposit phase; Conclusions: The decrease of trunk kinematic load suggests that providing material fragility information to workers in asymmetric lifting tasks would be effective in reducing their risk of LBP
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