Health problems among workers engagediin education of handicapped children status of daily care and trend of physical complaints: Status of Daily Care and Trend of Physical Complaints

Abstract

Workers engaged in compulsory education and training of severely handicapped children have a high prevalence of neck pain, shoulder pain, low back pain and general fatigue. These complaints are mainly due to heavy physical burden placed on these workers in caring for a large number of handicapped children who are unable to satisfy by themselves daily needs such as excretion, putting on and off their clothes, and eating. To prevent these physical disturbances, it was found effective to reduce the number of assigned handicapped children, to introduce physical exercise especially designed for low back pain prevention, and to provide individual guidance to workers through health examination. Though these measures are expensive, they are considered necessary in preventing disturbances and in executing the government's program of providing compulsory education and training to all handicapped children in the country. © 1986, Japan Society for Occupational Health. All rights reserved.