Do undergraduate physiotherapy students adopt safe handling strategies during therapeutic handling situations?

Jones, Karen, Coales, Philippa J. and Van Deursen, Robert William Martin ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9461-0111 2012. Do undergraduate physiotherapy students adopt safe handling strategies during therapeutic handling situations? Journal of Physiotherapy

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Abstract

Objective: To investigate whether undergraduate physiotherapy students are able to problem solve and adopt safe handling practices during a rehabilitation task with an environmental constraint (fixed bed heights). Design: A same subject experimental design was employed to control extraneous variables. Setting: Research Centre for Clinical Kinesiology, Cardiff University Participants: A convenience sample of 40 undergraduate physiotherapy students volunteered for the study. Thirty seven completed the data collection and were analysed. Procedure: Subjects performed passive movements to the lower limb (hip flexion/ extension) at three different bed heights, those being 35%, 40% and 45% of subject height. Outcome measures: Hip and knee angles were measured using Silicon Coach Pro Version 6.0 programme and lumbar spine angle using a bespoke programme in Matlab 7.0. Results: A safe working posture is described as less than 30 degrees lumbar spine flexion which all subjects achieved at all bed heights. However the strategy adopted at the lowest bed height, involving postural adjustment of hips and knees, was insufficient when compared to a model of the optimum posture as perceived by IOSH Manual handling trainers. Conclusion: Although these subjects maintained a safe lumbar spine posture their avoidance strategies were poorly executed at the lower bed heights and this is cause for concern when further challenges may exist in the clinical environment. Subjects were also observed using compensatory strategies involving other anatomical regions so putting these areas at risk of injury. The ability of these subjects to problem solve and execute safe handling must be questioned.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Submission
Status:	Submitted
Schools:	Healthcare Sciences
Subjects:	R Medicine > RZ Other systems of medicine
Last Modified:	24 Oct 2022 10:16
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/43653

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