• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2022.06a
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• pp.465-472
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• 2022

Manual material handling is the one of the leading causes for musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) and lower back discomfort. According to a study, construction formworkers suffer greater rates of muscular injuries and related illness due to manual activities. However, there is still a paucity of information on MSD, preventive posture issues, and corresponding solutions for construction aluminum formworkers. As a result, MSD and disregard of worker health and safety continue to exist at construction sites. Although preventive measures and strategies have been studied in previous research, we believe it is imperative to shed light on this problem through this study. This study aims to 1) implement a simple and cost-effective elevated bench to reduce MSDs, and 2) determine the rapid upper limbs assessment (RULA) and Ovako working posture analyzing system (OWAS) action catagory of workers in different postures to assess their MSD conditions and obtain an optimal position and posture using the Jack human modeling software and simulation tool. The study findings reveal a considerable reduction in MSD discomfort and which posture is acceptable in post-intervention instances.Thus results provide inexpensive and simple ergonomic interventions with favorable RULA and OWAS ratings that can be applied at construction sites. This study demonstrates workstation ergonomic intervention cases that can aid in understanding the urgency of applying existing research strategies into practice.

• PNF and Movement
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.329-337
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• 2019

Purpose: Ultrasound imaging is commonly used to measure the pennation angle of human skeletal muscles in vivo. However, manual assessment of the pennation angle using ultrasound images is subjective and time-consuming and requires a high level of examiner skill. The architectural analysis of human skeletal muscles is thus challenging. Automated approaches using image processing techniques are therefore required to estimate the pennation angle in ultrasound images. The purpose of this study was thus to assess the intra-tester and inter-tester reliability and validity of the pennation angle using an automatic measurement program. Methods: Twenty-two healthy young adults (mean age = 22.55 years) with no medical history of neurological or musculoskeletal disorders voluntarily participated in this study. Ultrasound imaging was used to measure the pennation angle of the gastrocnemius muscle at rest. One examiner acquired images from all the participants. The intra-tester and inter-tester reliability were evaluated using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) to estimate reliability. Validity was measured using Pearson's correlation coefficient. Results: The intra-rater reliability was excellent for the automatic pennation angle measuring program and the manual pennation angle assessment method (ICC>0.95). The inter-rater reliability was also excellent for both methods (ICC>0.93). All the correlation coefficients for the automatic pennation angle measuring program and the manual pennation angle assessment method were 0.79, which indicated a significantly positive correlation (p<0.05). Conclusion: Pennation angle measurement using the automatic pennation angle measuring program showed acceptable reliability and validity. This study therefore demonstrated that the automatic measuring program was able to automatically measure the pennation angle of skeletal muscles using ultrasound images, and thus made it easy to investigate skeletal muscle architecture.

• The Journal of Korean society of community based occupational therapy
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.51-59
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• 2016

Objective : The purpose of study is to provide basic information about the effects of leisure time use and leisure activity performance for intellectual disabilities residing in a residential care facility by participating a regular rehabilitation sports program. Methods : Participants were recruited 8 individual with intellectual disability in a residential care facility in Yong-in city and the study period lasted 12 weeks, from september 1 to November 30 in 2015. As a program, participants participated a muscle strengthening exercise using a Gym-ball and a elastic band. In order to analyze leisure time-use, time questionnaire was used every month to analyze total time and exercise frequency. Also, analyze the effects of leisure activity performance, Canadian Occupational Performance Measure(COPM) was used to performance and satisfaction of dynamic leisure activity. Collected data was encoded by item and analyzed with SPSS ver18.0. Descriptive statistics were used for the participants' general information. A non-parametric test (the Friedman test) was used to analyze leisure time-use. A non-parametric test (the Wilcoxon's signed ranked test) was used to analyze to the effects of leisure activity performance. Statistical significance was accepted outside the 95% confidence interval. Results : The results of the total time and the exercise frequency showed significant increase. Also, the results of the performance and the satisfaction showed significant increase. Conclusion : Thus, the participation of the rehabilitation sports program is a vital element to lead to change leisure time use and leisure activity performance for intellectual disabilities residing in a residential care facility. Also, through the providing and the developing a regular rehabilitation sports program systematically, intellectual disabilities residing in a residential care facility have a higher quality of life and satisfaction of the daily routine and life in a residential care facility.