Occupational medicine
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Occupational medicine · Jan 2012
Biography Historical ArticleGustave Caillebotte the house painters 1877.
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Multi-site pain is a common phenomenon among working-age people and it strongly increases work disability risk. Little is known about the impact of musculoskeletal pain on work ability. ⋯ The results of the present study indicate that multi-site musculoskeletal pain at baseline strongly predicts poor work ability after 4 years among industrial workers. Counting the number of concurrent pain sites may be a simple method of identifying workers with high risk of work disability in occupational health practice.
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Occupational medicine · May 2011
Case ReportsFatal hydrogen sulphide poisoning in unconfined spaces.
Fatal hydrogen sulphide poisoning usually occurs in confined spaces. We report two fatal accidents in unconfined spaces. The first accident caused the death of three workers who entered an unconfined room in a silo of sludge at the same time that a truck dumped several tons of sludge from water purification stations. ⋯ Although he was rapidly transferred to an intensive care unit, death occurred a few hours later. Hydrogen sulphide production was, in this case, due to an 'embolism effect' produced by the displacement of wastewater when the substation pumps were activated. We suggest ways in which accidents such as these caused by sudden release of hydrogen sulphide can be prevented.
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Occupational medicine · Mar 2011
Multicenter StudyPredicting the transition from acute to persistent low back pain.
Most people experience low back pain (LBP) at least once in their lifetime. Only a minority of them go on to develop persistent LBP. However, the socioeconomic costs of persistent LBP significantly exceed the costs of the initial acute LBP episode. ⋯ In this study of patients with acute LBP in a primary care setting psychological factors at baseline correlated with a progression to persistent LBP up to 6 months. The benefit of including factors such as 'depression and maladaptive cognition' in screening tools is that these factors can be addressed in primary and secondary prevention.
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Occupational medicine · Mar 2011
Correlation between risk factors and musculoskeletal disorders among classical musicians.
Musculoskeletal disorders in humans may originate from biomechanical, environmental, psychosocial and personal risk factors encountered in the working environment. These disorders in musicians are designated as playing related musculoskeletal disorders (PRMD). ⋯ The biomechanical risk factors that predict PRMD are mainly associated with the upper limbs. A high association between PRMD and clinical observation emphasizes the need for further investigation of these risk factors and to study possible implementations in order to define 'prevention strategies' for musical routines and patterns, as used by classical musicians.