Collection Occupational hygiene, Issue 28, 1992 year
Study of the influence of general vibration on diseases of the lumbar spine in agricultural machine operators
V. I. Chernyuk
doi
Kiev Research Institute of Occupational Hygiene and Occupational Diseases
833 tractor drivers working on various brands of tractors were examined. More than half (60.7%) of the surveyed persons were under the age of 40; 42.2% had work experience of up to 10 years; 37.8% - 11–20 years, 19.9% - over 20 years.
We retrospectively established the level of general vibration affecting the machine operators, the duration of the seniority contact with this factor, calculated the experience doses of vibration loads and compared them with the revealed pathology of the lumbar spine.
Pathological changes in the form of chronic lumbodynia and radiculitis were found in 145 machine operators. The gradual onset of the disease should be noted.
However, it should be borne in mind that vibration as the cause of diseases of the lumbar spine identified in machine operators cannot be the only one, since one cannot ignore the possibility of the influence of concomitant cooling or physical overstrain - factors that themselves can cause radiculitis or lumbodynia ... As mentioned, the prevalence of the Vibration factor
indicates the gradual development of the disease. It is these cases (in the amount of 49) that we selected for the correlation-regression analysis of the level-time-effect relationship. In all cases, the pain syndrome was confirmed by the presence of leukocytosis in the blood taken from the pain point of the lumbar region. When determining the duration of exposure to vibration, the time of the first appearance of pain was taken into account.
Under the influence of general vibration with an average level of 115 Ld dBeq, diseases of the lumbar spine develop on average after 12 years of work: the correlation coefficient is 0.78, the regression coefficient is 2.88 per 1 dB of the vibration level.