Article Text
Abstract
Introduction Low back pain is considered to be the second most frequent cause of morbidity and disability, leading only to headache. It affects 70%–80% of the adult population at some point in life, especially those who are working in the labour market. By affecting the economically active population, it interferes with family income and company productivity. This is because it brings suffering to patients and their families, and entails costs resulting from falling productivity, unpaid days, medical and legal expenses, insurance payments and disability benefits.
Methods Ergonomic evaluation by the Michigan Biomechanical Model and Analysis of the results obtained in the spinal group formed by a multiprofessional team, created by an automobile industry to treat their workers with spine pathologies in the last 2 years.
Result The ergonomic evaluation confirmed the presence of significant biomechanical overload for the lumbar spine and causal relationship with the activities evaluated. Of the 26 participants evaluated in the group, 53% had no limitations in the range of spinal movements at the time of examination, 73% reported improvement in quality of life, and only 15% said they had the same pain and limitation as when they started to do the accompaniment in the column program. When questioned, 80% of the participants reported that improvement in both physical examination and in quality of life was due to the treatment and follow-up done in the spinal group.
Conclusion The study found an improvement in the quality of life, a significant reduction in functional limitation and absenteeism in the participants of the group. These results are compatible with those obtained by the group in previous years and are also in agreement with those cited in the literature.