Combining ergonomics with rehabilitation engineering can change lives and provide disabled individuals with a means to do things that may otherwise seem impossible. This article highlights a few examples, including designs that help a young paraplegic auto mechanic, a multi-finger amputee mechanic, and even allow a quadriplegic to fish.

The State of Washington and NIOSH share the results of a symposium that brought together private insurance carriers, insurance associations, self-insured corporations, academic institutions and government agencies. The participants learned how Workers Compensation data can be used to estimate injury magnitude, severity, cost, frequency, and trends, which can then be used to prioritize prevention.

Researchers tested safe patient handling training methods, including classroom and contextual (hands-on) training in both emergency and non-emergency situations. Not surprisingly, they found that contextual training is more effective than classroom training, but what are the implications for ergonomists?

A survey based study of critical care nurses shows that most still manually perform patient lift and transfer tasks, creating a strikingly high level of workplace risk in relation to patient handling tasks. However, safe practices are followed when efective management characteristics are in place.