Ergonomic Risk Assessment of Dental Students—RULA Applied to Objective Kinematic Data

Kim Sarah Blume, Fabian Holzgreve, Laura Fraeulin, Christina Erbe, Werner Betz, Eileen M. Wanke, Doerthe Brueggmann, Albert Nienhaus, Christian Maurer-Grubinger, David A. Groneberg and Daniela Ohlendorf
Additional contact information
Kim Sarah Blume: Institute of Occupational Medicine, Social Medicine and Environmental Medicine, Goethe University, 60596 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Fabian Holzgreve: Institute of Occupational Medicine, Social Medicine and Environmental Medicine, Goethe University, 60596 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Laura Fraeulin: Institute of Occupational Medicine, Social Medicine and Environmental Medicine, Goethe University, 60596 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Christina Erbe: Department of Orthodontics, School of Dentistry, University Medical Centre of the Johannes Gutenberg University, 55131 Mainz, Germany
Werner Betz: Institute of Dentistry, Goethe-University, 60596 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Eileen M. Wanke: Institute of Occupational Medicine, Social Medicine and Environmental Medicine, Goethe University, 60596 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Doerthe Brueggmann: Institute of Occupational Medicine, Social Medicine and Environmental Medicine, Goethe University, 60596 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Albert Nienhaus: Principles of Prevention and Rehabilitation Department (GPR), Institute for Statutory Accident Insurance and Prevention in the Health and Welfare Services (BGW), 20251 Hamburg, Germany
Christian Maurer-Grubinger: Institute of Occupational Medicine, Social Medicine and Environmental Medicine, Goethe University, 60596 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
David A. Groneberg: Institute of Occupational Medicine, Social Medicine and Environmental Medicine, Goethe University, 60596 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Daniela Ohlendorf: Institute of Occupational Medicine, Social Medicine and Environmental Medicine, Goethe University, 60596 Frankfurt am Main, Germany

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 19, 1-16

Abstract: Musculoskeletal disorder (MSD) is already prevalent in dental students despite their young age and the short duration of dental practice. The current findings state that the causes of MSD are related to posture during dental work. This study aims to investigate the ergonomic risk of dental students. In order to analyze the ergonomic risk of dental students, 3D motion analyses were performed with inertial sensors during the performance of standardized dental activities. For this purpose, 15 dental students and 15 dental assistant trainees (all right-handed) were measured in a team. Data were analyzed using the Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA), which was modified to evaluate objective data. Ergonomic risk was found for the following body parts in descending order: left wrist, right wrist, neck, trunk, left lower arm, right lower arm, right upper arm, left upper arm. All relevant body parts, taken together, exhibited a posture with the highest RULA score that could be achieved (median Final Overall = 7), with body parts in the very highest RULA score of 7 for almost 80% of the treatment time. Dental students work with poor posture over a long period of time, exposing them to high ergonomic risk. Therefore, it seems necessary that more attention should be paid to theoretical and practical ergonomics in dental school.

Keywords: ergonomic risk; dental students; RULA; kinematic analysis; dental activities; MSD (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/19/10550/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/19/10550/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:19:p:10550-:d:651820

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().