Question

need 7 to 8 slides presentation on "lifting Hazards" from chap 15 of book "OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH For Technologists, Engineers, and Managers SEVENTH EDITION DAVID L. GOETSCH"

Answer 1

LIFTING HAZARDS

Back injuries that result from improper lifting are among the most common in an industrial
setting. In fact, back injuries account for approximately $12 billion in workers’ compensation
costs annually. The following statistics concerning workplace back injuries
illustrate the scope and seriousness of this problem:
• Lower back injuries account for 20 to 25 percent of all workers’ compensation claims.
• Thirty-three to 40 percent of all workers’ compensation costs are related to lower back
injuries.
• Each year, there are approximately 46,000 back injuries in the workplace.
• Back injuries cause 100 million lost workdays each year.
• Approximately 80 percent of the population will experience lower back pain at some
point in their lives.
Typical cause of back injuries in the workplace include: improper lifting, reaching,
sitting, and bending. Lifting hazards such as poor posture, ergonomic factors, and personal
lifestyles also contribute to back problems. Consequently, a company’s overall
safety and health program should have a back safety/lifting component.

Back Safety/Lifting Program:
Prevention is critical in back safety. Consequently, safety and health professionals need to
know how to establish back safety programs that overcome the hazards of lifting and
other activities. Dr. Alex Kaliokin recommends the following six-step program:
1. Display poster illustrations. Posters that illustrate proper lifting, reaching, sitting,
and bending techniques should be displayed strategically throughout the workplace.
This is as important in offices as in the plant. Clerical and office personnel actually sustain
a higher proportion of back injuries than employees in general. Sitting too long without
standing, stretching, and walking can put as much pressure on the back as lifting.
2. Preemployment screening. Preemployment screening can identify people who
already have back problems when they apply. This is important because more than
40 percent of back injuries occur in the first year of employment and the majority of these
injuries are related to preexisting back problems.
3. Regular safety inspections. Periodic inspections of the workplace can identify
potential problem areas so that corrective action can be taken immediately. Occasionally,
bringing a workers’ compensation consultant in to assist with an inspection can help
identify hazards that company personnel may miss.
4. Education and training. Education and training designed to help employees understand
how to lift, bend, reach, stand, walk, and sit safely can be the most effective preventive
measure undertaken. Companies that provide back safety training report a
significant decrease in back injuries.
5. Use external services. A variety of external health care agencies can help companies
extend their programs. Identify local health care providing agencies and organizations,
what services they can provide, and a contact person in each. Maintaining a
positive relationship with these external service contact people can increase the services
available to employers.
6. Map out the prevention program. The first five steps should be written down
and incorporated in the company’s overall safety and health program. The written plan
should be reviewed periodically and updated as needed.
In spite of a company’s best efforts, back injuries will still occur. Consequently,
safety and health professionals should be familiar with the treatment and therapy that
injured employees are likely to receive. Treatment for reconditioning addresses five
goals: restoring function, reducing pain, minimizing deficits in strength, reducing lost
time, and returning the body to preinjury fitness levels.

A concept that is gaining acceptance in bridging the gap between treatment or therapy
and a safe return to work is known as work hardening. Work hardening and its objectives
are explained as follows: In specially designed “work centers,” various work stations,
exercise equipment, and aggressive protocols are used for work reconditioning. The
objectives are:
• A return to maximum physical abilities as soon as possible
• Improvement of general body fitness
• Reducing the likelihood of reinjury
• Work simulation that duplicates real work conditions

The work centers referred to above replicate in as much detail as possible the injured employee’s
actual work environment. In addition to undergoing carefully controlled and monitored
therapy in the work center, the employee is encouraged to use exercise equipment.
Employees who undergo work center therapy should have already completed a program of
acute physical therapy and pain management, and they should be medically stable.37
Health and safety managers can help facilitate the fastest possible safe resumption of
duties by injured employees by identifying local health care providers that use the workhardening
approach. Such services and local providers of them should be made known to
higher management so that the company can take advantage of them.

Proper Lifting Techniques
One of the most effective ways to prevent back injuries is to teach employees proper lifting
techniques. Following are lifting techniques that should be taught as part of an organization’s
safety program.
Plan Ahead
• Determine if you can lift the load. Is it too heavy or too awkward?
• Decide if you need assistance.
• Check your route to see whether it has obstructions and slippery surfaces.
Lift with Your Legs, Not Your Back
• Bend at your knees, keeping your back straight.
• Position your feet close to the object.
• Center your body over the load.
• Lift straight up smoothly; don’t jerk.
• Keep your torso straight; don’t twist while lifting or after the load is lifted.
• Set the load down slowly and smoothly with a straight back and bent knees; don’t let
go until the object is on the floor.
Push, Don’t Pull
• Pushing puts less strain on your back; don’t pull objects.
• Use rollers under the object whenever possible.

NIOSH and the Ergonomic Guidelines for Manual Material Handling (EGMMH)
NIOSH originally developed guidelines for lifting and lowering in 1981. The guidelines
include a formula for calculating the recommended weight limit for a given lifting job.
The 1981 formula was simple and easy to use because it considered only a few factors
that affect a lifting task. In 1993, the NIOSH guidelines were revised. The formula now
takes into account nonsymmetrical lifting and lifting of items that don’t have handles.
Another important aspect of the guidelines was the new multitask-analysis strategy. This
strategy gives safety professionals a method for considering a variety of related lifting
variables and how they interact. This is a much more complicated method than the original,
but it is also much more accurate and realistic.

The multitask-analysis strategy is particularly useful when dealing with tasks in
which the lifting variables change throughout the task. For example, consider the task of
a stacking job in which each successive item takes a different vertical location in the
stack. The ergonomics of the task change with each successive item added to the stack
(for example, reach span required, height of lift) as do the corresponding hazards.
Because of its complexity, the NIOSH lifting equation is now more difficult to use
than the original version. Safety professionals should know the formulas to understand
and identify the various risk factors that contribute to back injuries. Software that allows
safety professionals simply to plug selected values into the formulas is becoming readily
available and is recommended. These values may be easily collected using nothing more
than a stopwatch and a tape measure.
To apply the new lifting equation, safety professionals need to understand the types
of information that they must collect and either turn it over to mathematicians or plug it
into a computer program. This information is as follows:
LC: Load constant (always use 51 pounds or 23 kilograms)
HM: Horizontal line measured from the midpoint between the ankles forward to
the midpoint between the hands, at both the origin and destination of lift
VM: Vertical line from the floor to the hands (also measured at the origin and destination of the lift)
DM: Vertical distance between the origin and destination of the lift
AM: Turning or twisting angle of asymmetry
FM: Average frequency rate of lifting measured in lifts per minute
CM: Coupling value (Does the item to be lifted have a good, fair, or poor grasping mechanism?)

More recently, NIOSH teamed with the California Occupational Safety and Health
Administration and the Ergonomic Assist and Systems Equipment Council of the Material
Handling Industry of America to develop the Ergonomic Guidelines for Manual Material
Handling (EGMMH). The guidelines were finalized in 2006 and were developed primarily
for smaller companies that cannot afford to hire a staff of safety and health professionals.
They are divided into four parts: (1) the ergonomic process; (2) a matrix of common
material handling tasks; (3) several chapters on how to approach common material handling
tasks; and (4) a resource index.
The guidelines provide more than one safe way to approach the various material handling
tasks covered, and they incorporate photographs and pictures to illustrate these approaches.
Organizations or safety and health professionals who are interested in
obtaining a copy of the EGMMH should visit the NIOSH Web site:
www.cde.goc/niosh