• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.36-49
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• 1998

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between the work postures and upper extremity cumulative trauma disorders(CTDs) in female medical insurance bill reviewers(n=448). This study included diagnosis for CTDs, anthropometry and job analysis (workstations and posture). The characteristics of subject were 33.6 years of average age and 8.7 years of average work duration. The results were as fallows. Ergonomic conditions of workstation were unsuitable compared with anthropometry result. The height of work surface(79.5 cm) and chair(43.0 cm)were high. work space was small, and legs space under the table was limited. Work postures were awkward compared with recommended neutral postures. Neck flexion($21.0-36.0^{\circ}$), elbow elevation, shoulder abduction ($46.0-47.0^{\circ}$). wrist radial and ulnar deviation, forearm supination and pronation, and wrist repeated motion(12.7-21.5 freq./min) were analyzed as hazardous risk factors by job analysis. The prevalence of CTDs was 32.8 % by medical diagnosis. The prevalence rate of CTDs in hazardous work posture group was significantly greater than safe work posture group both neck-shoulder (relative prevalence = 5.2, p<0.001) and wrist-hand (relative prevalence = 2.5, p<0.05).

• Proceedings of the ESK Conference
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• 1996.10a
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• pp.3-6
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• 1996

Cumulative trauma disorders (CTDs) are becoming a major health hazard among phone directory service operators. In order to clarify the causes and to reduce the occurrence of CTDs, a site survey was done. The survey includes observation of the task and the working environment. Also, operators were closely examined and diagnosed to understand the exact causes of CTDs. Different types of CTDs were identified and the most cases were developed in a two or three-years after using new VDT-based workstations. The various design features of workstation aggravated the developemtn of CTDs together with the intense workload. The ergonomic resolutions were suggested based upon these observations.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.503-517
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• 1998

Cumulative trauma disorders(CTDs) of the upper extremities among the workers at manufacturing workplace have become a serious problem in Korea. However, most of the studies on the CTDs carried out in this country have focused on the Video Display Terminal(VDT) operators. In fact, high rates of the CTDs have been reported for telecommunication employees, and the CTDs associated with VDT use in telecommunication industries pose great health and social problems in Korea today. On the other hand, there are few studies on the CTDs among the manufacturing workers, and the severity of the problem was much under-reported. This study reports and discusses the results of the literature review on the cross-sectional studies of the CTDs, along with the analysis of the problems associated with identification, medical examinations, and ergonomic evaluation of the disorders. Also a checklist was developed for the use of quick screening tool for risk factor analysis. Consistency of the checklist was validated with the field studies of several manufacturing workplace. Current issues and suggestions for future ergonomic studies are also addressed.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.23 no.55
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• pp.33-42
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• 2000

It is difficult to estimate the effective factors upon Cumulative Trauma Disorders in real workplace because those are developed by combination of various risk factors for time. The purpose of this paper was to evaluate relative level of CTDs risk factors such as task-related factors, anthropometric factors, joint deviation factors and personal factors using fuzzy linear regression models. And the models are built corresponding to each category with the survey data from telephone operators. The coefficient of fuzzy models are described as the relative level of variable to present risk factors upon CTDs.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.24-35
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• 1998

Cumulative trauma disorders(CTDs) have been a growing problems for US and European industries with higher incidence rate every year. The increase and their associated costs has led companies to form committes and implement programs to address this problem. In our country, we have just started to recognize and to work on the problems in industry. This study conducted an ergonomic analysis for typical jobs of ship building industry which was not usually surveyed for CTD problem. A baseline CTD checklist which was supposed to do a risk assessment was developed and applied in this study. Initially, we considered five major parts in the checklist which consisted of personal, frequency, posture, force, and miscellaneous information. Most jobs in ship building industry were much different from typical assembly work and VDT work that have been major part of the previous CTD studies. Specifically, job characteristics in terms of frequency and posture were quite different. There were relatively long cycle time, awkward postures for whole body (not just for upper extremities). Also, CTD risk scores based on checklist were a lot higher than the scores for VDT jobs which was a case of preceding application of the checklist. Specifically, grinding jobs turned out to be the most risky one in terms of CTDs. In conclusion, usual CTD prevention guidelines are not likely to he effective in this type of industry. An individual job based interventions are strongly suggested to have a good control of CTD problems in ship building industry.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.56-69
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• 2001

Objectives : This study was designed to develop and standardize a checklist for ergonomic risk factors, and to provide ergonomic guidelines for managing cumulative trauma disorders (CTDs) in automobile assembly lines. Methods : The Checklist for Ergonomic Risk Factors (CERF-1) was developed based on the results of previous studies, and then modified after performing pilot study. Information on the symptoms possibly related with CTDs was obtained using a self-reported Questionnaire from 465 automobile assembly workers. Their job conditions were examined to assess risk factors through both direct observation and video analysis. Results : Rate of detecting risky job through CERF-1 was 85.6%, and was similar to that (88.8%) by Occupational Safety and Health Adminstration(OSHA) checklist but higher than that (63.7%) by American National Standards Institute(ANSI) Z-365. Relationship of the exposure scores derived from CERF-1 with levels of symptom was greater (r=0.49) than OSHA (r=0.28) and ANSI Z-365 (r=0.22). Considering the relationship, jobs scoring higher than 16 could be classified as the Risk Job. and lower than 16 as the Low Risk Job. Sensitivity and specificity of the Risk Job were 92.5 % and 31.5 %, respectively. Odds ratio (OR) after age adjustment was 5.69 (95 % confidence interval 3.15-10.29) for the Risk Job, and these ORs were significantly different from those of the Low Risk Job. The exposure scores were Quite valid, in that the scores at the main survey were significantly correlated with those at the follow-up survey, as suggested by test-retest(r=0.88) and inter-rater reliability(r=0.80). Conclusions : The CERF-1, developed in this study, will be an efficient tool for evaluation of risk jobs for CTDs in automobile assembly lines, and can be used easily by health care providers.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.1-31
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• 2009

The need and rationale for public participation in science and technology is widely acknowledged in academic communities and policy circles. In addition to institutionalized forms of participation, some STS researchers have paid attention to spontaneous forms of public participation, particularly with regard to social movement. This paper aims to explore a new form of public participation, which had been relatively neglected in STS studies. For this purpose, in this paper we examine environmental health issues and cumulative trauma disorders (CTDs) debates as examples of doing "undone science" in Korea. Our focus will be specifically on how environmental organizations and trade unions have both succeeded in making those issues as research and policy agenda for both scientific community and policy makers. In a concluding section, a couple of suggestions for further research are proposed.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.153-160
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• 2000

Occupational cumulative traumas (CTDs) are becoming one of leading ailments in industrialized worl $d^{(1.2)}$. The degree of muscle fatigue is important parameter to understand cause of occupational cumulative trauma disorders. To quantify degree of muscle fatigue, muscle EMG activity was measured during isometric and dynamic contractions(repetitive concentric/eccentric muscle contraction) and its analyzed data, such as RMS, median frequency, and median power were compared when the muscle was fresh and exhausted. When muscle become fatigue, it was observed that median frequency decreased and median power and RMS increased However, based on overall prolonged observation, median frequency increased and median power and RMS decreased. Therefore it was concluded that shifting patterns of RMS, median frequency, and median power values can be used as parameter to evaluate degree of muscle fatigue even in dynamic muscle contraction.

• Proceedings of the ESK Conference
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• 1996.10a
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• pp.238-243
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• 1996

Grip strength is a very important basic data for ergonomic design of hand tools, grips, handles and etc.. Excessive grip strength is contineously exerted to handle the machines or tools, it might cause a musculoskeletal disorder such as cumulative trauma disorders. Capal tunnel syndrome is a typical nerve disorder anomg CTDs. In this paper we have measured the grip strength under sitting and standing posture for Korean adults ; 113 male and 105 female aged from 20' to the above 50' . And this paper performed statistical analysis for driving out characteristics between grip strength and anthropometric data. The results are as follows ; (1) The maximum girp strength is exerted under standing posture with the elbow in full extension(180 .deg. ) for both of male and female (2) There is significant difference in posture, sex and right left hand (3) Grip strength decreases with age for male, but it traces an inverted U curve for female (4) Grip strength has a correlation with age, weight, height, BSA, forearm length, hand length, thickness of wrist, circumference of wrist and breadth of wrist for male

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.73-83
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• 1997

It is improtant to get accurate information about the grip strength for designing ergonomic grips and handles. It has been known that the excessive and repetitive use of grip force and unnatural posture of the wrist may cause cumulative trauma disorders (CTDs) such as carpal tunnel syndrome, tendrome, tendonitis, DeQuervan's disease, etc. In this paper we have measured the grip strength for sitting and standing posture for Korean adults ; 114 males and 105 females aged from the 20's to above the 50's. And this paper performed statistical analysis for deriving characteristics between grip strength and anthropometric data. The results are as follows ; (1) The maximum grip strength posture is exerted under standing posture with the elbow in full extension (180 .deg. ) for both males and females (2) There is significant difference among posture, sex and right and/or left handedness (3) Grip strength decreases with age for male, but it traces an inverted U curve for female (4) Grip strength has corre- lations with the age, weight, height, BSA, forearm length, hand length, thickness of wrist, circumference of wrist, and breadth of wrist for males.