As\nyou are pushing someone in a wheelchair, there is a high possibility that you\nwill be hurting your back without knowing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A\nresearch that was conducted at The Ohio State University Spine Research\nInstitute tested measured forces applied upon the spine when pushing a\nwheelchair and identified that people are not good when it comes to knowing\nwhen it is the right time to stop applying more force that can hurt their\nbacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nresearch involved volunteers who were required to push a simulated wheelchair\nover increased resistance where the participants exceeded the required limits\nneeded to prevent back injury. They exceeded the limit by an average of 20\npercent before stopping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According\nto Dr. William Marras, a director of the Institute and a chaired Professor of\nHonda Integrated Systems Engineering at\nOhio State, he stated that, there is no\npredefined ergonomic standard that guides the pushing of wheelchairs.\nCaregivers judge if they can still push a patient depending on how their backs\nfeel. However, with an increase in weight due to obesity, patients get heavier\nand harder to push around in wheelchairs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr.\nMarras goes on to say that, handling patients is one of the most dangerous jobs\nout there as it risks the health of your back. It is more dangerous as compared\nto working in construction or mining or any other similar jobs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr.\nMarras stated that they had studied the risks of lifting patients and how it\naffects the caregivers, as until that particular moment, no one had ever\nperformed any serious biometrical assessment regarding what happens when\nsomeone pushes a patient in a wheelchair. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For over a decade, there has been an increase\nin weight of average patients. Wheelchairs can now be found in larger sizes so\nas to accommodate fatter patients. However, the traditional design of the\nwheelchair is still the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Due to the results generated by the study,\nthere are minor design changes that would have helped in transforming\nwheelchairs making them easier to push, that is what Dr. Marras said. In case\nthe handle height was to be adjusted, for example, if the handles were to be\nrotated 90 degrees identical to a shopping cart, that would have been a good\nstarting point. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Besides, the team suggested that building a\nmotor-assisted wheelchair that could take over when the person who is pushing the\nwheelchair exceeds the limit that should not be exceeded so as to prevent back\npain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The study involved 62 volunteers where 31 were\nmen while 31 were women, with an average age of 25 years. Each of them had to\npush a wheelchair against a rig that was attached to an overhead braking\nmechanism installed with adjustable resistance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The rig simulated the average placement as well\nas the height of the wheelchair handles. Initially, the resistance started as\nbeing low, then it was increased gradually until the volunteers felt that they\ncould no longer push the rig any further. During the entire process, the\nresearchers were measuring the forces applied upon the discs of their spine.\nThe extremist loads, which were reached by just a few participants, was equal\nto pushing patients weighing up to 485 lb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The volunteers in the study tried to keep\npushing and about 17 to 18 percent exceeded the point at which they should have\nstopped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When you push against a heavy object, your\nspine is exposed to compression. The National Institute for Occupational Safety\nand Health has set the compression limit slightly over 760 pounds of 3,400\nNewton force so as to prevent any back injury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the volunteers were pushing against the\nsimulated wheelchair, it was noted that the male volunteers pushed and exceeded\nthis limit for about 34 percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Weston who was part of the team of\nresearchers involved in the research stated that, pushing heavy weight poses a\nrisk to both men and women, but the risk reasons differ between them. Men are\ncapable of pushing loads that are heavy to the extent that they can hurt themselves,\nwhile women are quicker to reach a point of quitting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Besides, the researcher noted that turning a\nwheelchair is difficult as compared to pushing it in a straight line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This was identified during the research as\nturning the wheelchair led to a 40 percent increase of the spinal forces as the\nvolunteers were forced to stabilize their backs by using their core muscles\nwhile they were pushing with a single hand and pulling with the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is the first time that researchers had\nworked to measure the biomechanical loads over different varieties of\nwheelchair pushing forces or loads of biomechanical that take place during the\nturning of the wheelchair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was a small study that was conducted back\nin 1995 in Netherland, where volunteers pushed a chair that had a fixed weight\nup an incline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr. Marras stated that looking at the part of\nthe back, they were so concerned about the disk has it has fewer nerve endings\nand this makes it hard to determine whether you are damaging it or not. That is\nthe reason they conducted the research. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The study confirmed that people do not feel uncomfortable even when they exceed the actual limits which are set for preventing injury for about 20 percent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Madison Medical rental is a medical rental company. Check here on how you can rent a wheelchair for low cost<\/a> with their senior rental program. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As you are pushing someone in a wheelchair, there is a high possibility that you will be hurting your back without knowing it. A research that was conducted at The Ohio State University Spine Research Institute tested measured forces applied upon the spine when pushing a wheelchair and identified that people are not good when… Continue reading How Pushing A Wheelchair Affects Your back?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/madisonmedicalrental.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/madisonmedicalrental.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/madisonmedicalrental.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/madisonmedicalrental.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/madisonmedicalrental.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/madisonmedicalrental.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":114,"href":"http:\/\/madisonmedicalrental.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions\/114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/madisonmedicalrental.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/madisonmedicalrental.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/madisonmedicalrental.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}