Ergonomic product development within dentistry : An empirical study with focus on strain issues in the hand-/armextremities, and recommendations for future product development

Abstract: This report presents a Master of Science Thesis, conducted at the Royal Institute of Technology, within Industrial Design Engineering, in collaboration with the privately owned healthcare company Praktikertjänst AB. The purpose of this project was to investigate the distribution of injuries and issues in the hand-/arm extremities among dentistry personnel, as well as explore the possibility to prevent these to emerge. Through literature studies, field visits and empirical methods, valuable insights have been obtained. These were processed and resulted in recommendations for future product development including suggestions of solutions, and a checklist for clinics which they can use to prevent strain issues from occurring. The result shows that work-related strain issues in the hand-/arm extremities exist to a large extent among dentistry personnel. Most dentistry personnel with hand-/arm problems experience pain in their fingers and wrist on their right-hand side. Then, it is most common with strain injuries in the fingers and wrist, where the three most specified injuries were thumb arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome and lateral epicondylitis. Moreover, the most common symptoms were cold hands, numbness, and impaired grip. However, these symptoms were not connected to a specific injury. The underlying causes of these issues are many but could be reduced by ergonomic product development and human centered design. Furthermore, it would be interesting to examine the impact of vibrations, since symptoms of vibration syndromes can be seen, and few respondents have specified a diagnosis. Also, the result shows that there are presumably unrecorded cases in national statistics considering work related injuries. Whether the result can be generalized for the whole dental care sector or not is difficult to determine, since most of the material was gathered from the private sector. Therefore, it would be of great interest to carry out a similar study within the regional dentistry.