Abstract
Recent studies have shown that many of the activities children and adolescents perform on farms are associated with increased LBD risks, particularly, the handling of water and feed buckets. Hence, the purpose of this study is to introduce and evaluate two interventions, Ergo Bucket Carrier (EBC) and Easy Lift (EL), for youths (and adults) to handle water/feed bucket on farms. Nine subjects (six males and three females) consented to participate in this study. To assess the risk of LBD, the participants were instrumented with a three-dimensional spinal electrogoniometer while handling water buckets using three handling methods. The results showed that the two interventions can effectively and significantly decrease the magnitudes of the overall LBD risk in many of the tasks evaluated. Particularly, EBC effectively reduce the LBD risks for carrying and dumping tasks and so does EL for lifting tasks. Results of the subjective response were consistent with the objective evaluations. This study demonstrated the potential for ergonomic interventions in reducing LBD risks during the common farming and industrial task of bucket handling.
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