Work postures and strain of workers in nordic forest work: A selective review

In this paper, ergonomic characteristics of forest work and particularly the strain related to work postures are reviewed. Both in manual and mechanized forest work, working postures play an important role, separately and combined with other strain factors. The combined effect mmay be worse than those of single factors. Examples of such combinations include bad work postures in conjunction with heavy lifting while cutting or during maintenance of machines and whole-body vibration and repetitive steering work while operating machines. The situation becomes even more complicated when the whole work environment is taken into consideration. Work postures often contribute to strains that have far-reaching effects, but have no immediate impact on the worker's behaviour or injury rates. Even in highly mechanized forest work, problems still exist despite extensive development of cabs. Some new technical and design solutions have recently been introduced.