Low-back stresses when learning to use a materials handling device

This study examines the potential effect of short-term practice on low-back stresses during manual lifting and lowering of a 15 kg load, and while using two different types of materials handling devices (MHDs) to lift and lower a 40 kg load. The two MHDs used were an articulated balance arm and a pneumatic hoist. The expectation was that low-back dynamic moments, EMG measured torso muscle antagonism, and EMG predicted L4/L5 disc compression forces would rapidly decrease with practice, and that the manual lift-lower activities would be learned faster than the MHD-assisted exertions. Four naïve male college age subjects performed 40 lift and lower exertions, both manually and with the two MHDs for a total of 24 experiments. Non-linear regressions of the peak and average low-back moments, EMGs and disc compression values revealed only small decreases in the values (from 2 to 14%) over the 40 trials, and it was only statistically significant for five of the 48 regressions. This would seem to indicate that if learning is present in these tasks it is going to be very slow learning, and thus future studies will need to include a much larger number of trials. The effects of MHDs on the learning rates when compared to manual lifting learning rates was not statistically significant. It was shown, however, that MHDs had a particularly beneficial effect on reducing L4/L5 compression forces during load lowering activities despite the MHD load being much heavier than the manual load. It also was found that the level of torso muscle co-contraction increased significantly (2-4 times) when MHD handling was involved compared to manual lifting and lowering.