PUSH FORCES ON VINYL AND CARPET FOR CONVENTIONAL WHEELED AND MOTOR-DRIVEN FLOOR-BASED LIFTS AMONG DIRECT CARE STAFF IN LONG-TERM CARE

摘要

In response to high rates of work-related musculoskeletal injury (MSI) in long-term care (LTC), decision makers have implemented minimal-lift policies to reduce strain arising from resident transferring, often advocating the use of lifting devices. Floor-based lifts, in particular, are widely used in LTC, even though users are known to experience potentially injurious forces when pushing overweight or obese residents on carpet (Marras, Knapik & Ferguson, 2009). Motivated by this, a European manufacturer has developed a motor-driven, floor-based lift to assist users with resident transferring (esense Rise, Active4Care, Enschede, NL). Despite the motor-driven lift’s promise as a strategy for improved workplace safety, no research has been published examining its ability to reduce external hand forces, or perceptions of ease among users, during pushing. Therefore, we compared external hand forces and subjective ratings of perceived ease when straight-line pushing a motor-driven versus conventional (manual wheeled) floor-based lift, under conditions of low (vinyl) and high (carpet) rolling resistance, and while transporting passengers of average (67 kg) and ninetieth percentile (90 kg) resident weight. We recruited fourteen female direct care staff from a partner LTC site in British Columbia, Canada. We collected external hand force data using a piezoelectric, triaxial load cell (model 9074C, Kistler, Winterthur, Switzerland), custom mounted between existing lift handholds and a cylindrical handlebar. We also collected information on exposure (frequency, distance) to pushing in LTC by questionnaire, and calculated participant-specific tolerance limits for initial and sustained forces using Snook and Ciriello’s (1991) Hazard Analysis Tool.