Critical Study and Analysis of Musculoskeletal Disorders among Practicing Dentists

Abstract

In this study, the work situations of dental practitioners and the factors contributing to workload are analyzed based on ergonomics. Problem solving methodology was incorporated. The study aims at identifying the major musculoskeletal disorders among dentists and determining the causes for their prevalence. Dental students and practitioners were surveyed and interviewed for collecting data. Observations and simple statistics were used to understand the data. RULA method was used for assessment of the body posture and movements of dentists at work. The results showed that 76 percent of them suffer from MSDs and more than 85 percent of them do not take any measures to resolve them. Hand and wrist, lower back and upper back were found to be the most affected regions respectively.