Читать книгу Musculoskeletal Disorders - Sean Gallagher - Страница 15

For the purpose of this book, the term “musculoskeletal disorders” (MSDs) refers to “conditions involving the experience of pain, discomfort, and/or disability in the human musculoskeletal system, usually as the result of cumulative damage to one or more of the components of this system, including muscles, tendons, ligaments, nerves, cartilage, ligaments, bone, and/or fascia.” Note that this definition excludes musculoskeletal injuries that might occur due to slips, trips, or falls (acute injuries). Instead, MSDs are viewed to be the consequence of exposure to repetitive stress resulting from occupational tasks, athletic pursuits, and other physical activities.

Terms used to describe MSDs over the past several decades include “repetitive stress injuries,” “repetitive strain injuries,” “cumulative trauma disorders,” and “cumulative trauma injuries” (National Research Council – Institute of Medicine, 2001). These labels seem to imply that musculoskeletal injuries/disorders result from (a) exposure of musculoskeletal tissues to stress/strain, (b) the stress/strain application is repetitive in nature, and (c) that the repetitive stress/strain results in the development of cumulative trauma to the tissues. Thus, the very terms used to describe these disorders over the years seem to intuit the presence of a fatigue failure process in the development of MSDs. In fact, the terms above may actually be better descriptors of the actual injury process, as opposed to the all‐encompassing (but vague) term “MSDs.” However, in this book, we will use the latter term due to its standard current usage.