Evaluation of supermarket bagging using a wrist motion monitor.
The supermarket industry has one of the highest numbers of repeated trauma illnesses. Checkout departments have a rate of musculoskeletal injuries 2 to 3 times higher than that of other supermarket departments. The primary objective of this study was to quantify the wrist motions required to bag groceries using a wrist motion monitor. The wrist motions included deviations, velocities, and accelerations for flexion-extension, radial-ulnar, and pronation-supination directions. The independent variables were handle type and object location. Objects with finger-thumb couplings required more extreme pronations, greater wrist velocities for pronation-supination deviations, and greater wrist accelerations for pronation-supination deviations than did other objects. Objects with 10-cm hand couplings required more extreme flexion, larger ranges of movement for radial-ulnar deviations and pronation-supination deviations, and greater wrist velocities in the radial-ulnar and pronation-supination directions than did 5-cm objects. The right and front locations required more extreme deviations than did the left and back locations. Because finger-thumb and 10-cm hand couplings require larger wrist deviations and greater velocities, these objects may pose a greater risk of developing cumulative trauma disorders to the bagger. Potential applications of this research include engineering design of grocery packaging and supermarket bagging workstations.
Estill
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CF
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.
Kroemer
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KH
D000328:Adult; D012090:Cumulative Trauma Disorders / Q000209:etiology; D005511:Food Handling; D006801:Humans; D009068:Movement; D009784:Occupational Diseases / Q000209:etiology; D016272:Occupational Health; D016059:Range of Motion, Articular; D014955:Wrist Joint / Q000502:physiology*