Citation

Nagata H. Safety Sci. 1993; 17(1): 1-12.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1993, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Since the elderly population employed in industries in Japan is gradually increasing year by year, it is estimated that the number of falls the elderly have, will also increase. To encourage elderly employees to accept new job assignments, especially those who do not wish to, evaluation methods are required that are reasonable and acceptable to them. On this point, exponential equations between age and fatality rates that were obtained in the author's previous study, can be used in understanding the effects of aging on fatal falls. To persuade elderly employees to be more aware of their increasing chances of a fatal fall, due to their decreasing ability and weakness of body to fall damage. The probable risk of a fatal fall can be assessed from individual ages. But most employees are reluctant to accept new job assignments from dangerous jobs to safer ones only for reasons of age. I suggest cross matching methods which highlight the relationship between these equations for fatality rates and physical scores. It should be noted that the single leg standing test introduced in this paper, of standing on a 90 mm wide flat beam with eyes closed is advantageous in that it can check ankle function, negate the effect of shoe heel height and shorten the measuring time. It can be concluded that the elderly who can stand for less than 2 seconds in a single leg standing test on a flat beam with eyes closed, for less than 8 seconds on a floor with eyes closed and jump less than 10 times in a jump step test must be very cautious when engaged in dangerous jobs where they are liable to fall.