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Self-Consciousness about Ageing and Accident Prevention of Aged Workers  

Lim, Hyeon-Kyo (Department of Safety Engineering, Chungbuk National University)
Kim, Heon (Department of Preventive Medicine, Chungbuk National University)
Song, Jae-Chul (Department of Industrial Medicine, Hanyang University)
Chang, Seong-Rok (Department of Safety Engineering, Pukyong National University)
Publication Information
Journal of the Korean Society of Safety / v.24, no.5, 2009 , pp. 84-91 More about this Journal
Abstract
It is well known that Korea has got in an aged-society, and the speed of ageing is remarkably fast that has never seen before in the world. In spite of that, government officers and managers who are in charge of industrial safety seldom have interest in ageing workers, and much less ageing workers for themselves in the industrial fields. In the meanwhile the number of injured aged workers keeps going on and even increasing. Therefore this research was carried out to investigate the characteristics of aged workers on one hand, and to grasp the self-consciousness level of industrial workers on the problem of ageing. Furthermore, to develop countermeasures, opinions and hopes of middle managers in small- and medium-sized enterprises who were in charge of industrial safety and health were collected also. Though the reply rate was not so high as expected, opinions of safety and health managers were somewhat appropriate. They replied that the most urgent counterplan for ageing would be improvements of work environments followed by work assignments based upon personal aptitude. On the other hand, the self-consciousness level of aged workers was lower than middle managers, and they mainly complained of surgical disorders such as musculoskeltal disorders including lower back pains. However, they did not seem to recognize they are getting lose their physical function in maintaining body equilibrium.
Keywords
ageing; industrial accidents; musculoskeletal disorders; lower back pain;
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