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Health and Safety Matters - Manual Handling Explained
Posted on 23, Aug 2017

Manual handling activities have multiple scenarios, but the obvious manual handling scenario is the common occurrence of lifting a pen off the ground. Now, an adult head weighs 5-7 kg, so when it comes to the manual handling of a pen from off the ground from a standing posture, you are not simply lifting a pen up, your lift your head as well. This is possibly the most overlooked regular scenario in our daily lives, with serious health and safety implications as we grow older. The vertebrates & spine are finely adjusted; suited for standing posture, and walking. The vertebrate disks open up sufficiently to allow back movement activities such as manual handling exercises, but this leaves us open to back ergonomic health and safety issues in the case of top heavy loads.