Nursing aides (18 women and six men) at one traditional and one modern geriatric ward, and warehouse workers (16 men) at two different types of warehouse departments were studied during occupational work. The vertical load during manual handling was measured using strain gauges built into wooden shoes. The warehouse workers performed four times as many lifts as the nursing aides and transferred five times as great a mass per unit time. Less than 25 of the lifts were carried out with the load evenly distributed on both feet during both the upward lift and lowering. In the warehouses the lifts were short, while the nursing aides were exposed both to lifts of longer duration and to carrying, as well as a greater frequency of unexpected, sudden and high peak load. The heart rate and oxygen uptake values recorded were relatively low, and both groups utilized approximately 25 of their maximum aerobic power.
展开▼
