Risk positions assessment in order to prevent musculoskeletal injuries in the tube manufacturing industry

Abstract

There are many activities performed in a repeated way and in a risk positions that cause fatigue and subsequently may origin cumulative trauma diseases and musculoskeletal disorders (MSD). Although the disorders may appear as a consequence of an intense effort, its development is a multifactorial process, but it usually occurs because the prolonged exposure in certain positions or movements. The disorders can be of different severity degree, since mild periodic symptoms to serious synchronous conditions. One of the main reasons why this kind of disorders occurs is due to the bad designed workplaces. In order to detect bad designed workplaces are important to evaluate consistently the jobs, especially the manual activities in the industry. Ergonomic assessments allow having a vision of the work situation in order to design safe, healthy and productive jobs. The purpose of this work was to evaluate the process expansion of the tube fabrication industry, and implement an evaluation system musculoskeletal complaint in the industry. The Quick Exposure Check (QEC) assessment is one of the observational tools, developed for health professional to detect risk exposure and it was used to evaluate the process expansion of the tube fabrication industry. The process was analyzed during two months, evaluating frequency, duration and load weight. The body segments evaluated were back, shoulder, arm, wrist and neck. The study was conducted among 30 workers. In this study we have evaluated the prevalence of Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSD) symptoms among workers of the process expansion of the tube fabrication and the prevalence reported by the respondents was very high; 80% of respondents reported having pain in the shoulders at the end of the day. Shoulder pain is one of the most common presenting complaints in the daily clinical practice and in the process expansion of the tube fabrication; this accumulative trauma disease can be provoked. Our purpose was to implement the evaluation system CCR in the process expansion of the tube fabrication industry.