Musculoskeletal injuries in workers handling circular weaving machines, at a textile company located in a municipality of Cundinamarca, Colombia 2012

Lesiones osteomusculares en tejedores de máquinas circulares de una empresa textil.

Objective: Describe social demographic and occupational factors in a group of workers from circular area weavers who operate machines Monarch brand at a Textile Company in Bogota between the months of October 2011 to June 2012. Materials and Methods: Descriptive, Case Series study. The target population was composed by weavers workers aged 18 and over who have musculoskeletal injuries and operates MONARCH
machines at a Circular Area Textile Company in Bogota. From 300 workers, 150 had symptoms, of which 94 met the inclusion criteria. Results: We found that 68.1% of the studied population had low back pain, Shoulder pain 28.7%, is 18.1% epicondylitis and carpal tunnel syndrome in 17%. One musculoskeletal injury was presented in 72% and 22% two lesions. The most frequent combination was back pain and shoulder pain in 38.1%. Low back pain was more frequent between 31 and 45 years (72.7%). Conclusions: The most common musculoskeletal injury was low back pain, when presented as a single lesion or such as combination with others. Workers had more commonly
one musculoskeletal injury, being less frequent associations between two or more. The workers whom perform physical activity were 40.9% because the bike is their daily transportation. It would be important in future studies to compare the asymptomatic population with musculoskeletal injured population in order to make associations and assess possible risks and protective factors.