Occurrence of sudden movements at work

The purpose of this study was to investigate the frequency, intensity and causes of sudden movements occurring at work. Another aim was to find out whether the frequency and intensity of sudden movements show a correlation with self-assessed risk of accident. Eighteen workers in the forest industry, representing low, moderate and high self-assessed accident risk categories, were selected for the study. Occurrence of sudden trunk movement was assessed by a new method based on trunk acceleration measurement. A total of 297 sudden movements were registered. The most common causes of the sudden movements were jerking and climbing, and only two sudden movements were caused by slips. We found a correlation between self-assessed accident risk and occurrence of sudden movements at work. The present assessment method did not discriminate between different kinds of sudden movements. Methods to detect sudden movements should be further developed.