Abstract
A technique has been developed to quantify the restrictions to aircrew mobility produced while wearing various Chemical-Biological Warfare (CBW) protective garments. Twelve range-of-motion movements of three body areas were analyzed: (1) vertical and horizontal movements of head, arm and torso; (2) Horizontal forearm adduction from elbow; (3) Vertical movement of upper leg from hip and lower leg from knee. All subjects performed a three-minute video-displayed psychomotor tracking task while wearing six different test garments. They also completed questionnaires on subjective assessments of comfort, mobility, and general acceptability. Two of the ensembles allowed considerably more mobility than the other four. Performance scores on the tracking task and aircrew subjective ratings agreed with the mobility ratings.
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