- General Terms
- Ergonomic Equipment
- Postural & AntatomicalTerms
- Risk Factors
- Ergonomic Interventions
ERGONOMIC INTERVENTIONS
Job Enlargement: Adding duties to a worker’s job to reduce exposure to specific stresses of repetitive or physically strenuous jobs by increasing the number of different types of movements that the body performs.
Job Rotation: Alternation of a worker’s tasks with other tasks as a means of reducing specific stresses of repetitive or physically strenuous jobs.
Pacing: Controlling an employee's rate of movement through external means, such as a continuous conveyor moving at a fixed speed, production pressure, peer pressure, or pay incentives.
Personal Protective Equipment: Gloves, padding, or eye glasses worn and used for the purpose of controlling risk factors.
Recovery Time: Work periods when task demands are light or when rest breaks are scheduled, permitting a person to recover from heavy effort work such as prolonged fixed postures.
Redesign: Changes to an existing workplace or to production equipment to make it suitable for more employees; also, the reexamination of job requirements and their patterns of occurrence. Redesign is more expensive than incorporation of ergonomic principles in the initial design of a job.
Rest Allowances: Recovery time, including regularly scheduled work breaks, usually provided in jobs where heavy physical work or exposure to environmental extremes occurs. Rest allowances are built into the job standard so that productivity ratings recognize the need for additional recovery time in these jobs.
Work Restrictions - Work restrictions (1910.900) are limitations, during the recovery period, on an injured employee's exposure to MSD hazards. Work restrictions may involve limitations on the work activities of the employee's current job (light duty), transfer to temporary alternative duty jobs, or temporary removal from the workplace to recover. For the purposes of this standard, temporarily reducing an employee's work requirements in a new job in order to reduce muscle soreness resulting from the use of muscles in an unfamiliar way is not a work restriction. The day an employee first reports an MSD is not considered a day away from work, or a day of work restriction, even if the employee is removed from his or her regular duties for part of the day.
SOURCES USED DURING THIS COMPILATION OF ERGONOMIC TERMS:
- http://www.ergoweb.com/resources/faq/glossary.cfm
- http://www.workriteergo.com/ergonomics/glossary.asp
- http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_term/0,2542,t=anti-glare+filter&i=37812,00.asp
- http://www.afcindustries.com/monitor-arms.htm
- http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-an-ergonomic-keyboard.htm
- http://www.humanics-es.com/glossary.htm
- http://www.kareproducts.com/osha-ergonomic-terms-kf-32.html
Marji Hajic is an Occupational Therapist and a Certified Hand Therapist practicing at the Hand Therapy & Occupational Fitness Center in Santa Barbara, California. For more information on hand and upper extremity injuries, prevention and recovery, visit http://www.handhealthresources.com
