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The Ergonomic Databank for Social and Health Care (ERGOCAREBANK)

National and international statistics show a high risk of musculoskeletal disorders, among health care staff due to poor manual patient handling practices. The work in the elderly care is physically most demanding.Professional competencies of nurses demand good basic knowledge of rehabilitative ergonomic nursing. Vocational colleges emphasize to observe occupational health and safety. Literature and practice show that ergonomic approach could have a significant impact on reducing risk in patient handling,and improve quality of care. The important aim is to get students’ acquainted with ergonomic patient handling principles as part of rehabilitative nursing. The main goal of the project was to develop ergonomics of social and health care by collecting and creating ergonomic solutions for assisting the clients in ADL, moving and transferring. These solutions enable people to continue living at home or in nursing homes and carry out daily tasks in a way which minimizes the risk of injury to themselves and to their carers. These solutions were tested in the home laboratory in Sweden and in clients’ home or in nursing homes to determine their relevance to the task and whether they fulfil the requirements and their acceptance and usage by all, staff and clients.Multidisciplinary partners from educational field, Vocational College, University and Care Units collaborated to achieve ergonomic solutions for the Databank. The project benefited from partners different knowledge, skills, approaches in ergonomics and solution findings and well developed Swedish testing methods. Students were guided on-the-job-learning periods to collect and test the good practices. Their findings were refined for Ergocarebank.Five work seminars were held. Partners familiarized with each others innovations. Situations and problems of the nursing and care work, where the risk of injury needs to be minimized, were prioritized. The ergonomic solutions of the Home Care and Nursing Care work, their test and evaluation results were integrated into ErgocareBank. From project start to outcomes i.e. the web-sites, partners disseminated the project locally and throughout Europe. The project outcome is in English and the partners’ languages and web-sites will be even updated after the completion of the project. By cooperation with schools and workplaces, usage of the right action models, well-being at work, support of clients´ functional capacity, independence and quality of care will be improved, while musculoskeletal disorders and accident occurrences when assisting clients will be reduced.
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