In pushing and pulling wheeled carts, the direction of force exertion may, beside the force magnitude, considerably affect musculoskeletal loading. This paper describes how force direction changes as handle height and force level change, and the effects this has on the loads on the shoulder and low back. Eight subjects pushed against or pulled on a stationary bar or movable cart at various hand...

INTRODUCTION Varied definitions of disc pathology exist in the literature. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) classification systems incorporate several qualitative features including disc appearance, the distinction between the nucleus and the annulus, signal intensity and intervertebral disc height. The lack of a continuous measure has made it difficult to sensitively examine degenerative disc ...

Seated work has been shown to constitute a risk factor for low-back pain. This is attributed to the prolonged and monotonous low-level mechanical load imposed by a seated posture. To evaluate the potential health effects with respect to the low back of office chairs with a movable seat and back rest, trunk kinematics, erector spinae EMG, spinal shrinkage and local discomfort were assessed in 10...

Background: Chronic low back pain due to disc herniation is one of the common diseases in the community. In addition to the pain caused by this problem, which is a major complication, decreased and defective physical performance in daily living are other major concerns. Aim: To investigate the effect of combined therapeutic protocol (therapeutic exercises and massage) on the pain and physical p...

Unexpected sudden (un)loading of the trunk may induce inadequate responses of trunk muscles and uncontrolled trunk motion. These unexpected perturbations may occur in pushing tasks, when the cart suddenly starts moving (unloading) or is blocked by an obstacle (loading). In pushing, handle height affects the user's working posture, which may influence trunk muscle activity and trunk movement in ...

In the United States, there are 1.5 million fractures attributed to osteoporosis every year. Among them are 700,000 vertebral fractures.1 Vertebral compression fractures have a greater than 15% reduction in vertebral body height and are most often observed in the thoracolumbar transition zone.2 Patients typically present with back pain and get diagnosed with a vertebral fracture following X-ray...

PURPOSE To assess the relationship between quantitative measures of disc height and signal intensity with the Pfirrmann disc degeneration scoring system and to test the inter-rater reliability of the quantitative measures. METHODS Participants were 76 people who had recently recovered from their last episode of acute low back pain and underwent MRI scan on a single 3T machine. At all 380 lumb...

Present study is focused to analyze the association between the low back injury risk and work factors in few small scale casting firms of Northern India. Lifting Index (LI) was used as a decisive factor to ascertain the risk level of low back injury. Four different jobs performed by 40 different workers of three small scale casting units were investigated with the help of NIOSH lifting equation...