ether and how to respond to materials handling problems should be left to the discretion of industries and individual companies (Lambert, 2001).
One type of problem that complicates the issue is the underlying character of some work place health problems. Back injury is an illustration of this problem. Back pain can occur as the result of work or it can occur to some people as a part of the aging process. In either event, it is frequently difficult to measure. The most prevalent type back complaint is idiopathic lower-back pain, which is especially troublesome because the only physiological indicators are severe pain and limited mobility. While advances in medicine offer the prospect of a longer and more productive life, there has been little headway in treating this condition, other than improvements in treating the symptomatic pain. Studies of back-injury treatments conclude that no single regimen is more effective than any other therapy and, more significantly, that none enjoys a measurable ad
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