Citation

Brown TN, Loverro KL, Schiffman JM. Appl. Ergon. 2016; 55: 56-62.

Affiliation

Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety, Hopkinton, MA, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.apergo.2015.12.009

PMID

26995036

Abstract

Soldiers often trip and fall on duty, resulting in injury. This study examined ten male soldiers' ability to negotiate an obstacle. Participants had lead and trail foot minimum foot clearance (MFC) parameters quantified while crossing a low (305 mm) and high (457 mm) obstacle with (19.4 kg) and without (6 kg) body borne load. To minimize tripping risk, participants increased lead foot MFC (p = 0.028) and reduced lead (p = 0.044) and trail (p = 0.035) foot variability when negotiating an obstacle with body borne load. While obstacle height had no effect on MFC (p = 0.273 and p = 0.126), placing the trail foot closer to the high obstacle when crossing with body borne load, resulted in greater lead (R = 0.640, b = 0.241, p = 0.046) and trail (R = 0.636, b = 0.287, p = 0.048) MFC. Soldiers, when carrying typical military loads, may be able to minimize their risk of tripping over an obstacle by creating a safety margin via greater foot clearance with reduced variability.

Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Language: en