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Citation |
Phillips MP, Bazrgari B, Shapiro R. Ergonomics 2015; 59(5): 682-691. |
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Affiliation |
a Department of Biomedical Engineering , University of Kentucky , Lexington , KY , USA. |
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Copyright |
(Copyright © 2015, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group) |
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DOI |
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PMID |
26269149 |
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Abstract |
Modern day body armor has been successful at increasing survivability from previously lethal explosives, however, it has been suggested to reduce warfighter's performance and increase risk of injury. Joint biomechanics have a foremost impact on performance and risk of injury. The immediate and prolonged effects of wearing body armor on biomechanics of the lower back and knee during box drop and prone to standing tasks were investigated. The immediate effects of body armor on both tasks were an increase of ≥ 4% (p ≤ 0.02) in temporal task durations and a decrease of ~1.66 N/kg (p = 0.03) in normalized peak ground reaction force for the box drop test. The prolonged duration of walking with body armor (i.e., 45 minute) was not found to cause more changes in our measures than walking without body armor. Quantitative data related to the effects body armor are important for risk assessment and mission design such to reduce the risk of injury without compromising performance. Practitioner Summary The effects of wearing military body armor on biomechanics of the lower back and knee were investigated. Though wearing body armor was found to affect some biomechanical measures related to performance, the prolonged effects of exposure on our measures were the same whether or not the participants wore body armor. Language: en |