Occupational Medicine & Health Affairs
Open Access

Abstract

The city of Lucknow has a prominent place in the history of India particularly for its art, historical monuments and rich cultural heritage. Lucknow is also known around the world over for its many fine handicrafts. Some of the most popular names in the list are chikankari, hand-block, textile printing, zari, zardozi, ivory or bone carving, terracotta and many others that are practiced by various artisans of Lucknow. Chikankari is considered to be the most popular amongst these and is recognized worldwide. It is a fine art of embroidery made with untwisted yarn with the help of the needle on a fine cloth. Maximum (56.67%) are long hours of static work with awkward posture at traditionally designed looms can cause high prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) among carpet weavers. Most back pain is caused by bad posture while sitting, even though bad posture may not cause any discomfort, continual poor posture will in the long term cause back pain. As the ladies have to sit in one posture and that to they have to bend forward in order to do their work. It leads spine adopting a forward c shape. Although the immediate effects are not visible but as the aging process starts the effects of long hours of wrong posture starts showing on the walking posture of majority of women when they walk slight stoop in their bodies. The effect is more because of no change in their posture as they have very little space to move and they are doing embroidery with the frame at 0 degree and no support for their back while sitting on the floor which further aggravates the situation. When the lady is bending forward to do the embroidery work it leads to further complication because a lot of place she has to crane her neck to do justice to the intricacies in embroidery involved. Poor neck posture leads to a forward head position which is one of the most common causes of neck, head and shoulder tension and pain. This can result injuries like sprain and strain of the neck leading to weak neck muscle. In ideal scenario the elbow, arm and hand should be maintained at 90 degree angle while working. Additionally the work area should be large enough to accommodate the worker, allowing the full range of motions involved in performing required tasks and provide room for the equipment and materials that make up the workstation, but this type of work place is a distinct dream for the workers in the units that they are working, as they are working in their houses and space is very much cramped to have any space for the proper movement of either hand or shoulders. Workers should constantly work with their arms above shoulder level; work above the shoulders increases the use of shoulder muscles. With this constant use muscles do not have time to rest and thus tire more rapidly.

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