Die Kunst des Alterns

Development of Work Physiology and Ergonomics in Germany
—Tasks and Objectives in Education and Research
· Work Physiology · Work Science/Ergonomics · Physiological Costs
Summary
Work physiology which was established as a scientific
discipline in Germany around the turn from the 19th to the
20th century, when the focus was on basic investigations
into physical work and the human metabolism, became the
germ cell of todays widely-spred work science and
ergonomics. But it was a long way until in the sixties, several
chairs and research institutes for work physiology, work
science, and ergonomics had been founded mostly in faculties
of mechanical engineering at Technical Universities. It is
remarkable that the first generation of the full professors and
most of the renowned founders of ergonomics had been
working and had acquired their fundamental scientific
education in the world-famous Max-Planck-Institute of Work
Physiology in Dortmund.
Meanwhile, there is no doubt that the ergonomic design of
workplaces and the appropriate sensoric and motoric interfaces
in a man-machine system according to the principle „man, the
measure of all things“ would not correctly be possible if fundamental
work-physiological knowledge of the characteristics
of man, i.e., the capacities as well as the limitations of the
human sensory organs and the hand-arm system, were not
considered. Nonetheless, work physiology as a discipline in
Germany has lost somewhat in popularity during recent years.
This may be due to the fact that on the one hand basic
knowledge has found meanwhile its way into generally
applicable teaching and guiding principles of work science,
and ergonomics, respectively, and on the other hand that
effective research utilizing work-physiological methods needs
years of experience and mostly deserves intensive and hard
working as well as precisive working hypotheses and
strategies. Yet, a type of working associated with something
like „blood, sweat and tears“, of course, is not as popular in a
new generation of researchers as experiencing „fun at work“,
and getting fruitfull success, well in time via less strenuous
and more softly methods. But in ergonomics research, never
all claims may be given up to develop and apply methods
which allow to measure „physiological costs“ of work.
Assessing the ergonomic quality of, e.g., hand-held tools and
computer-input devices solely by expert rating, „paper and
pencil“ tests or subjective ratings could be insufficient and
misleading. In order to clearly quantify what has to be invested
or „paid“ by the musculature involved in work when utilizing
more or less ergonomically designed tools, also physiological
measures such as multi-channel electromyography have to be
applied. Similar is true for evaluating noise exposures who’s
physiological costs exactly can be quantified in „figures and
numbers“ by measuring threshold shifts, and their restitution
if there are still reversible and not already irreversible
physiological responses associated with noise.
So, comparable to work-related heart rate increases and their
restitution after work as specific physiological responses to
dynamic muscle work during classical work-physiological
investigations, also in the future it will be crucial in ergonomics
to apply objective, reproducible, specified and valid experimental
methods and to address concrete questions which
always require a clear commitment to working on details as it
was and is the case in work physiology.
Practical relevance
Comprehensive work-physiological knowledge of the
characteristics of the human organism, always was, and will
still in the future remain, a prerequisite for the truly ergonomic
design of workplaces and user-friendly tools and products.
Besides physiological core competencies for a competent
ergonomics education, work-physiological principles and
paradigms are absolutely necessary for ergonomics laboratory
research approaches as well for integrative applied field
research aiming at the analysis, assessment and humanoriented
design of the working environment.
134 H. Strasser
(61) 2007/3 Z. ARB. WISS.
Strasser.pmd 134
31.08.2007, 13:19