Workload and physical capacity among ageing municipal employees—a 16-year follow-up study

The main purpose of this study was to ascertain musculoskeletal and cardiovascular capacity among ageing employees in relation to workload over a period of 16 years. As the more specific aims were to find out firstly if the physical capacity was different among subjects who had high workload compared with subjects who had low workload and secondly if the changes in physical capacity during the follow-up period were different between subjects with high workload than among subjects with low workload

The data were obtained by physical capacity tests and field measurements (assessments of musculoskeletal and cardiovascular load). The study group consisted of 95 middle-aged subjects who were on average 51.9 years old at the beginning of the follow-up in 1981 and they were all employed. In 1997 they were 67.3 years and 93 of the subjects had retired. The sample represented workers who were employed in municipal occupations in different regions of Finland.

During the 16-year follow-up period age-related decline in physical capacity was observed. In general the subjects with low workload had better physical capacity than the subjects with high workload, especially among women. The improvements in physical capacity were more common than declines among subjects with low physical workload over the follow-up period. Among subjects with high physical workload the situation was mostly vice versa. However, the declines in isometric trunk extension strength and in aerobic capacity were more common among subjects with physically low workload than among subjects with high workload. The differences between high and low workload groups in physical capacity were larger among women than among men. It was concluded that physical workload seems to have more wearing effects than training effects on ageing workers.

Relevance to industry

Physically heavy work may have no training effect on physical capacity among aged workers. The physically heavy work has to be individually adjusted to correspond to a worker's physical capacity, bearing in mind age-related decline of physical capacity, and thereby preventing the overload of the worker.