Mini-séminaire annulé

The effects of age on physical fitness among manual workers

Life expectancy is increasing in most western countries, which carries a heavy burden on society through higher medical costs and an increased need for geriatric care. To accommodate this, many countries have decided to increase retirement age. This may not be a problem for all workers; however, we know that aging decreases physical fitness so what about workers with physically demanding occupations? The reduction in physical fitness with age is linked to more inactive life styles among elderly. Does that mean that workers who “exercise” every day because their work is physically demanding maintain their physical fitness? Not necessarily! Come to this short talk about age-related changes in physical fitness among elderly manual workers if you want to learn more. Bring your best ideas about what we can do to help the growing population of elderly workers.

Hammering in real and virtual environments

Virtual reality and force feedback interfaces are technologies that are increasingly being used in industry, including studying workstation ergonomics during the design phase of the workstation, facilitating improvements while reducing costs. A collaborative project was therefore carried out to study hammering tasks, as these tasks are relevant in these two research projects, as they present significant risks for the occurrence of musculoskeletal disorders and make it possible to show the limits of haptic interfaces (in terms of reactivity and level of effort feedback). The collaboration consists of a 3-month mobility in Aalborg (Denmark) to set up an experiment on hammering tasks for young people to compare these results with the results of a previous experiment on older workers, then a 2-month mobility in Rennes to carry out a VR experiment and compare the virtual task with the real one.