Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 21, 1993                   TAG: 9307210129
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHATTANOOGA, TENN.                                LENGTH: Medium

MONITOR DISCOVERS WHY YOU HAVE THAT ACHING BACK

A small Chattanooga, Tenn., company has developed a computerized device that may help ease the pain - both physical and financial. Chattanooga Group Inc.'s Lumbar Motion Monitor records movement to determine which tasks cause injury and whether changes should be made in work routines.

The lightweight monitor, which looks like a spine with a small computer at the base, is harnessed to the back and moves as a person works.

Wires attached to the monitor along the the lower back react as the worker moves. The information is sent to the computer to calculate range of motion, velocity and acceleration.

The monitor can reveal hidden problems, giving employers an opportunity to alter tasks before injury occurs.

Coca-Cola Co.'s Midwest operations used the monitor on route drivers and pallet builders, whose jobs lead to high rates of injury. The company wanted to reduce injuries and managers wanted to be sure the cost of modifying the work was justified.

"The LMM gives you data to compare," said Joe Miller, loss-prevention manager for Coca- Cola's west central region. "You see how you were doing the task before and the percentage of high risk, then you see how much it decreases with a modification. . . . It's not just guessing."

Coca-Cola will test alternative work methods at two sites for several months and then decide whether to implement the changes systemwide, Miller said.

Back injuries cause about 75 million lost work days annually in the United States, more than any other type of injury, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. In 1991, OSHA reported, employers spent $63 billion for workers compensation, nearly 40 percent of it for back injuries.

"Previous methods . . . studied the strain on the spine as though an employee worked in a frozen position," said monitor inventor Bill Marras, an Ohio State University engineering professor. "Our method . . . accounts for an employee's movement and how this movement influences spinal injuries."

The Travelers Insurance Group, one of the nation's largest workers compensation insurers, is using two of the machines in its industrial consulting programs.

"The LMM saves our clients money because it specifically finds out which bending or twisting by a worker is hazardous," said David Roy, an ergonomist for Hartford, Conn.-based Travelers. "It then allows us to measure the potential for injury when we use it to evaluate material handing tasks."

Roy estimated the monitor is 88 percent accurate, while traditional methods are about 50 percent accurate. But the results are not immediately noticeable.

"It takes almost two years to determine if our recommendations worked," Roy said. "Back injuries take a long time to develop and a change may not be evident until a year or so down the road."

Industrial monitors cost about $15,000, clinical monitors about $19,000.

Ed Dunlay, a Chattanooga Group vice president, said the devices, expected to earn the company more than $1 million this year, are increasingly popular because of OSHA legislation and the American Disabilities Act.