Musculoskeletal disorder among caregivers at nursing care homes in Hulu Langat, Selangor / Muhammad Saifuddin Kamsan

Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) can be simply defined as sensation of pain on muscles, joints, tendons, ligaments and other soft tissues due to nature of job. It can affect the workers who deal with manual handling and awkward postures. The development of MSDs has been found to produce negative impacts to the organizations and be a world-wide burden to all countries. Since caregivers deal with manual handling and awkward postures, their profession is classified as high-risk occupation with high prevalence rate of MSDs. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to assess MSDs among caregivers at nursing care homes in terms of prevalence, risk factors and whole body postures aside from providing recommendations to
reduce the risks of MSDs. A number of 33 caregivers in Hulu Langat were assessed for MSDs. The results found high prevalence of MSDs among them especially at
lower back (66.7%) and shoulder (60.6%). Two body parts were classified as low prevalence which are at thigh (15.2%) and knee (24.2%). The factors that can contribute to the development of MSDs are workplace structure, working experience, lifting, carrying, pulling and repositioning. Whole body postures were assessed by using Rapid Entire Body Assessment form and found that more than half of
caregivers (51.52%) exposed to high risk, 30.30% of subjects were at medium risk and 18.18% of subjects exposed to very high risk. Thus, the results of the study can
be used as baseline data to implement appropriate measures for addressing ergonomics issues in the future