Studies Assessing the Effects of Prolonged Standing at Work: A Review

A. S. Shaikh, Rahul D. Shelke

Prolong Standing, Energy Expenditure, Anti-Fatigue Mat, Fatigue, Pain, Discomfort.

Prolonged standing during working hours is prevalent in industries. Standing is a natural human posture and possesses no specific health risk. However, prolonged standing plays a vital role in numerous health problems. This study is a review of the work done by researchers in the past on industrial workers, who stand for long time during working hours. This type of study is imperative to understand and improve the existing methods used to reduce health risk associated with prolong standing. To know the impact of different conditions on performance of an individual while standing, many researchers used subjective as well as objective methods. Subjective methods are often considered unreliable for decision making, whereas objective methods often give almost reliable results for decision making. Fatigue is more appropriate factor than pain or discomfort when it comes to evaluate individual performance. Researchers need to concentrate more on physical exertion to analyses the performance of any individual, rather than on its by-products e.g. fatigue, pain or discomfort. Studies need to be carried out on large population and for longer duration with continuous observation to further understand and estimate the accurate effects of prevalent methods to reduce health risk. Most of the researchers reported that use of soft mat may help reduce adverse health effects of prolonged standing, but some concluded that it doesn’t have significant effect.

10.22161/ijaers/3.10.15