A master thesis from Aalborg University
Changes in motor variability during a repetitive deboning process:
Author(s)
Term
4. term
Publication year
2008
Submitted on
2008-06-11
Pages
0 pages
Abstract
The prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders among workers in the meat processing industry is found to be high and workrelated neck and upper limb disorders are common problems among slaughterhouse workers. Motor variability may play a role in the etiology of musculoskeletal disorders. In parallel, age and work experience are known to influence motor strategies. This study introduces nonlinear approach for assessing motor variability in ergonomics for the first time. In combination with linear methods the effect of work experience and discomfort in terms of standard deviation coefficient of variation (variability), approximate entropy, sample entropy (regularity), and correlation dimension (dimensionality) were estimated. Workers with high experience were characterized by having smaller amount of variability compared to low experienced subjects. Discomfort in the neck-shoulder region resulted in lower amount of variability and higher complexity for the head-shoulder displacement, while the amount of variability increased and the regularity and complexity decreased for the elbow-hip displacement. The result could probably be linked to compensatory mechanisms in response to neckshoulder discomfort.
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