Development of an Ergonomic Checklist for the Investigation of Work-related Upper Limb Disorders in Farming _ AULA: Agricultural Upper-Limb Assessment

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this study was to develop an ergonomic checklist (AULA: Agricultural Upper-Limb Assessment) which can assess the risks of the work-related upper limb disorders of farming tasks in Korea. Background: There are few assessment tools that reflect the current condition of agricultural works as of now. Method: AULA was developed as following three stages. First of all, a physiological experiment was conducted with selected 14 upper limb postures which are frequently occurred in farming tasks and then, an ergonomic checklist was developed with determining risk levels of each body posture based on the experimental findings. Lastly, the ergonomic checklist was validated by comparing with the existing assessment tools. Results: When comparing the AULA which was developed in this study with the existing assessment tools, it was found that the AULA may get over limits of the existing ones which are sensitive to particular postures, but aren't sensitive to the rest of them. Conclusion: It is predicted that the developed upper limb posture assessment tool which gets over the existing tools' limits and is proper for domestic farm work conditions, will help to reduce musculoskeletal disorders caused by farm works, by assessing farm works more easily and objectively. Application: By further developing the theoretical groundwork on the induction of muscular skeletal system symptoms relating to agricultural works, it is expected to improve the level of preventing and managing such muscular skeletal system symptoms in the field of agricultural and farming works, which is relatively less advanced in terms of labor difficulties.