• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.565-575
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• 2014

Objective: The aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of weight of load and time on the physical workload of repetitive upper-limb tasks with handling light weight loads using EMG and perceived discomfort, and to investigate the relationship between EMG and perceived discomfort for those repetitive tasks of moving light weight loads. Background: Repetitive upper-limb motion is known as one of the main risk factors of musculoskeletal disorders, and a lot of repetitive tasks are carried out while handling light weight loads in the industry. In evaluating the workload of repetitive tasks handling light weight loads, EMG and perceived discomfort can be used, though their relationship in those work conditions are not much investigated. Method: A laboratory experiment with 18 healthy males were conducted to record EMG signals from 5 muscle sites of the right arm and shoulder and rate perceived discomforts for the body parts and the whole body while carrying out repetitive materials-handling tasks for 52min. The subjects were divided into 3 groups which handled the loads of 1kg, 2kg and 3kg, respectively. ANOVAs were conducted to analyze the effects of the weight and time on RMS of EMG amplitude (normalized RMS: NRMS), median frequency of power spectrum of EMG (normalized MDF: NMDF) and perceived discomfort. The correlations between NRMS and NMDF and perceived discomfort were also analyzed. Results: Statistically significant muscular fatigue effects were not found from NRMS and NMDF in most muscles, while there were significant increases of discomfort as the task time elapsed. It was shown that there were an increasing trend of the muscular activity as the weight of load increased and a decreasing trend of median frequency of EMG of upper and lower arms as time elapsed. It was found that there were significant negative correlations between NMDFs from the lower arm and discomfort ratings, though the relationships were weak. Conclusion: It can be concluded that the working conditions adopted in this study were not enough to induce muscular fatigue, while there was significant increase in perceived discomfort. A further study is necessary to integrate the objective and subjective measures for more reliable and sensitive evaluation of workload of repetitive tasks of handling light weight loads. Application: This study can be used as a basic study for the evaluation of workload of repetitive tasks handling light weight loads.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.9-15
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• 2005

The purpose of this study is to quantitatively investigate perceived discomfort of complex shoulder postures with external loads and to propose a preliminary evaluation scheme of shoulder postures. Twelve healthy male adults participated in an experiment to rate their perceived discomfort of shoulder postures. The independent variables were shoulder flexion angle(45, 90 and 150$^{\circ}$), adduction/abduction angle(-30, -10, 0, 30 and 60$^{\circ}$), and external load(0, 1.5 and 3.0kg). The results revealed that the flexion angle, external load and their interaction significantly affected the perceived discomfort(p$<$0.05) but the effect of adduction/abduction angle on the discomfort was not significant(p$>$0.05). The effect of external load was much larger than that of any other factor with explaining about 81% of the total variation of discomfort scores. Based on the experimental results a preliminary scheme was presented to evaluate the stress of shoulder postures with external loads.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.302-312
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• 2017

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify associated factors of chewing discomfort among community-dwelling elderly. Methods: The study was cross-sectional design and secondary data analysis using the 6th Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Among the total of 7,550 participants, data was analyzed with 1,126 adults aged 65 years and over. Chewing discomfort was assessed by the perceived chewing discomfort. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to find the associated factors of chewing discomfort. Results: Along with 61.7% of the participants reported having chewing discomfort, 85.2% reported to perceive poor oral health and 35.0% had oral pain. In multivariate logistic regression, perceived oral health (OR 3.22, 95% CI 2.24~4.63), oral pain (OR 2.46, 95% CI 1.76~3.43), activity limitation (OR 1.71, 95% CI 1.05~2.80), teeth requiring treatment (OR 1.61, 95% CI 1.14~2.26), number of remaining teeth (OR 1.60, 95% CI 1.22~2.10) and educational level (OR 1.56, 95% CI 1.15~2.12) were the significant predictors of chewing discomfort. Conclusion: The prevalence in chewing discomfort was high in elderly Koreans and various factors were associated with chewing discomfort. To improve chewing ability, it is suggested that the national level of policies offer strategical oral health programs in this population.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.11-21
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• 1997

The purpose of this study is to obtain 3-dimensional isocomfort workspace using the robot kinematics, which is based on perceived discomfort in varying postures for manipulating four types of controls. Fifteen healthy male subjects participated in the experiment where their perceived discomfort in the given postures was measured, in which L32 orthogonal array was adopted. The shoulder flexion and adduction-abduction, elbow flexion, types of controls, and right/left hands were selected as experimental variables. The results showed that the shoulder flexion and adduction-abduction, elbow flexion, and types of controls significantly affected the perceived discomfort at .alpha. =0.01. Depending upon the types of control used, regression equations predicting perceived dis- comfort and three dimensional isocomfort workspace were suggested based on the experiemntal cata. Using the equations, driver's isocomfort workspace in his/her cabin for pushing operation was illustrated, in which the robot kinematics was employed to describe the translational relationships between the upper arm and the lower arm/hand. It was ecpected that isocomfort workspace could be used as a valuable guideline to design workplaces ergonomically.

• Proceedings of the ESK Conference
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• 1994.04a
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• pp.115-123
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• 1994

A man model can be used as an effective tool to design ergomonically sound products and workplaces, and subsequently evaluate them properly. For a man model to be truly useful, it must be integrated with a posture prediction model which should be capable of representing the human arm reach posture in the context of equipments and workspaces. Since the human movement possesses redundant degrees of freedom, accurate representation or prediction of human movemtn was known to be a difficult problem. To solve this redundancy problem, the psychophysical cost function can predict the arm reach posture accurately. But the joint discomfort that human feels at the joint can not be predicted since the effects of external factors on the joint discomfort is not known. In this study a psychophysical experi- ment using the magnitude estimation technique was performed to evaluate the effects of external factors such as joint, joint angle and Perceived Exertion Ratio on the joint discomfort. Results showed that the joint discomfort increased as the Perceived Exertion Ratio increased, but the relation is not linear and was affected not only by the joint but also by the joint angle for the same Perceived Exertion Ratio. The interaction effect of the joint and the joint angle was also significant. From the results it is needed to develope the cost function which can predict the joint discomfort considering the joint, joint angle and external load.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.178-183
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• 2002

The purpose of this study was to quantitatively investigate the effects of external load upper extremity posture on perceived discomfort. An experiment was conducted for measuring discomfort scores depending upon external loads and upper extremity postures, in which the free modules and numeric estimate method of the magnitude estimation was adopted as a tool for obtaining discomfort ratings. The upper extremity postures were controlled by wrist flexion/extension, elbow foexion, shoulder flexion, and shoulder adduction/abduction. The results showed that all experimental variables except shoulder adduction/abduction were significant at ${\alpha}$=0.01 or 0.05. The effect of external load was very much larger than that of upper extremity postures. Therefore, it is recommended that a new posture classification scheme taking effect of external load to into consideration be developed for quantifying postural load.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.76-83
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• 2004

This study aimed to empirically investigate perceived discomfort depending upon external load, upper limb postures and their holding time. Discomfort was obtained through an experiment, in which external load, wrist flexion/extension, elbow flexion, shoulder flexion and adduction/abduction were used as experimental variables. The subjects were instructed to hold given postures for 60s and to rate their subjective discomfort scores at 5s, 20s, 40s and 60s by using the free modulus method of magnitude estimation. The results showed that while only external load and elbow flexion were statistically significant at the holding time of 5s at ${\alpha}=0.05$ or 0.10, external load and upper limb postures excluding shoulder adduction/abduction significantly affected discomfort ratings at 20s, 40s and 60s at ${\alpha}=0.01$ or 0.05. Discomfort scores were also significantly different between four posture holding times at ${\alpha}=0.01$. The effects of external load and holding time were much larger than those of upper limb postures. Based on the results of this study, it is recommended that external load and holding time as well as working postures betaken into consideration to precisely quantify postural load in industry.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.779-791
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• 1997

The purpose of this study is to measure a perceived joint discomfort in the seated and standing position, and to provide ranking systems of perceived joint discomfort. Nineteen mole subjects with no history of musculo-skeletal disorders participated in the experiment. Their physical characteristics were: age $-25.4{\pm}2.7$years, stature $-171.9{\pm}6.0cm$, and body weight $-67.1{\pm}7.0kg$. The results showed that the perceived joint discomforts were different depending upon the joints involved in motion and their movement directions (degree of freedom of motions), which implied that the human body motions and their degrees of freedom should be classified into several distinct classes that need to be assigned different weights of postural stress. Therefore, three ranking systems based on the perceived joint discomforts were suggested, which were classified by the degree of freedom of motions and joints, by only degree of freedom motions, and by joints involved in motion, respectively. In the seated position, the hip movement was the most stressful, the bock was the second, and the shoulder was the third. Likewise, in the standing postures, the hip was the most, the bock was the second, and the ankle was the third. It was expected that these joint motion ranking systems could be used by practitioners of health and safety to improve the comfort of working postures in industry.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.49-54
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• 2016

Background: Prolonged sitting leads to low back discomfort and lumbopelvic muscle fatigue. This study examined the characteristics of body perceived discomfort and trunk muscle fatigue during 1 hour of sitting in three postures in office workers. Methods: Thirty workers sat for 1 hour in one of three sitting postures (i.e., upright, slumped, and forward leaning postures). Body discomfort was assessed using the Body Perceived Discomfort scale at the beginning and after 1 hour of sitting. Electromyographic (EMG) signals were recorded from superficial lumbar multifidus, iliocostalis lumborum pars thoracis, internal oblique (IO)/transversus abdominis (TrA), and rectus abdominis muscles during 1 hour of sitting. The median frequency (MDF) of the EMG power spectrum was calculated. Results: Regardless of the sitting posture, the Body Perceived Discomfort scores in the neck, shoulder, upper back, low back, and buttock significantly increased after 1 hour of sitting compared with baseline values ($t_{(9)}=-11.97$ to -2.69, p < 0.05). The MDF value of the EMG signal of rectus abdominis, iliocostalis lumborum pars thoracis, and multifidus muscles was unchanged over time in all three sitting postures. Only the right and left IO/TrA in the slumped sitting posture was significantly associated with decreased MDF over time (p = 0.019 to 0.041). Conclusion: Prolonged sitting led to increased body discomfort in the neck, shoulder, upper back, low back, and buttock. No sign of trunk muscle fatigue was detected over 1 hour of sitting in the upright and forward leaning postures. Prolonged slumped sitting may relate to IO/TrA muscle fatigue, which may compromise the stability of the spine, making it susceptible to injury.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.67-79
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• 2007

The objective of this study is to investigate a perceived discomfort and cause of Korean elderly in various activities such as work and leisure as well as in daily activities. 120 subjects (30 female and 30 male for each age: the young and elderly) participated in the interview type of questionnaire. Each participant answered to 41 items of activities of daily living. The examination of each item was progressed with 3 steps: whether to do the activity or not, degree of activity discomfort, and the reasons or causes of discomfort. Borg's CR10 scale is used to measure the degree of discomfort of daily activities. As a result, there are differences for the proportion of performers between two age groups, except for essential activities such as individual maintenance and housekeeping. The elderly complained about their daily activities more than the young did, and the degree of discomfort of women was significantly larger than that of men with aging. There are seven items, the mean degree of discomfort of which is over three points for the elderly, and they showed significant difference between two age groups. It was the important reason that physical capacities such as muscle strength and suppleness are declined. The results showed the characteristics of Korean elderly in the whole daily activities. These will be used to understand various life styles of them and to propose a field or direction of study related to the aging.