Upper extremity musculoskeletal disorders in hospital workers

Impact of occupations and job tasks on the prevalence of carpal tunnel syndrome.

“…In our survey of the literature, there were 21 articles and reports that met the established criteria: 15 crosssectional studies in which 32 occupational or exposure groups had been studied (table 1) (6,(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24) and six case-referent studies (table 2) (25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30). All of these studies involved prevalent cases of CTS.…”

Implementing participatory ergonomics teams among health care workers

“…A less extensive literature points to high rates of upper-extremity musculoskeletal disorders in health care workers. Punnett [1987] found a high prevalence of upper extremity musculoskeletal disorders among a group of health care workers: 8.8% had shoulder disorders, 2.8% had elbow disorders, 4.3% had wrist disor-ders, 10.3% had hand disorders, and 6% had carpal tunnel syndrome. Cardiac sonographers and dental hygienists have been reported to be at increased risk of upper-extremity musculoskeletal disorders [Vanderpool et al, 1993].…”

Detecting cumulative trauma disorders in workers performing repetitive tasks

“…These factors include high force, high repetitiveness, combined force and repetitiveness, sustained postures, awkward upper extremity positions, and vibration [Silverstein, 1985;Arndt, 1987;Armstrong and Chaffin, 1979;Armstrong et al, 1982;Armstrong, 1986;Dimberg, 1987;Kiser, 19871. Some of the jobs associated with high prevalence of CTDs are: meat packing [Roto and Kivi, 1984;Finkel, 1985;Masear et al, 19861, poultry processing [Armstrong et al, 19821, factory production [Ferguson, 1971;Feldman et al, 1987;Silverstein et al, 1987b], garment assembly and other sewing tasks [Wehrle, 1976;Punnett et al, 1985;Punnett, 1987;Vihma et al, 19821, supermarket checkers [Margolis, 19871, and video display terminal (VDT) operators [Smith et al, 1981;Oxenburgh et al, 1985;Chapnik, 19871. Carpal tunnel syndrome has been the focus of many studies [Birkbeck and Beer, 1975;Armstrong and Chaffin, 1979;Cannon et al, 1981;Hoffman and Hoffman, 1985;Masear et al, 1986;Bleecker et al, 1987;Feldman et al, 1987;Margolis and Kraus, 1987;Silverstein et al, 1987a;Nathan et al, 19881, whereas other conditions and diagnoses were investigated less often [Thompson et al, 1951;Wilson and Wilson, 1957;Younghusband and Black, 1963;Hymovich and Lindholm, 1966;Armstrong et al, 1982;Chatterjee et al, 1982;Silverstein et al, 1986…”