Glossary
Ergonomics glossary
Plain-language definitions of the assessment methods Ergocure runs and the compliance and clinical terms behind them.
Assessment methods
- REBA — Rapid Entire Body Assessment
- Assess exposure to risk from whole-body postures, including lower extremities — particularly for tasks involving unpredictable, varied postures.
- RULA — Rapid Upper Limb Assessment
- Assess exposure to risk due to posture, duration, frequency, and force for the upper limbs, neck, and trunk — particularly in sedentary, computer-intensive, or precision work.
- ROSA — Rapid Office Strain Assessment
- Evaluate ergonomic risk at computer workstations — assessing chair, monitor, keyboard, mouse, and telephone configuration against validated office ergonomics standards.
- NIOSH — NIOSH Lifting Equation (Revised, 1994)
- Calculate the Recommended Weight Limit (RWL) for two-handed manual lifting tasks and determine the Lifting Index (LI) — the ratio of actual load to the RWL.
- OCRA — Occupational Repetitive Actions (Checklist)
- Quantify upper-limb exposure to repetitive, high-frequency manual work and predict the risk of work-related musculoskeletal disorders of the shoulder, elbow, wrist, and hand.
Key terms
- MSD (Musculoskeletal Disorder)
- Injuries or disorders of the muscles, nerves, tendons, joints and cartilage of the back, neck and limbs, caused or aggravated by work. Preventing MSDs is the goal of ergonomic risk assessment.
- DSE (Display Screen Equipment)
- The UK/EU term for any device with a screen — monitor, laptop, tablet. Under the EU Directive 90/270/EEC and the UK DSE Regulations 1992, employers must assess DSE workstations for every regular user.
- OSH Code 2020
- India's Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 — consolidates 13 labour laws into enforceable workplace health-and-safety duties. In force from 21 November 2025.
- SEBI BRSR
- Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report — SEBI's mandatory ESG disclosure for India's largest listed companies. Principle 3 covers employee well-being, health and safety, where ergonomics data fits.
- DPDP Act 2023
- India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 — governs processing of personal data, including consent and erasure rights. Ergocure is DPDPA-compliant: video never leaves the device and faces are blurred on-device.
- ISO 45001:2018
- The international standard for occupational health-and-safety management systems. Managing ergonomic and MSD risk is part of demonstrating conformance.
- NMQ (Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire)
- A standardised self-report survey of discomfort by body region, used to screen for musculoskeletal symptoms before posture is scored.
- Action level
- The risk band a method's score falls into (for example: acceptable / investigate / change soon / change immediately), which dictates what intervention is needed.
- Grand score (final score)
- The single overall score a method outputs — e.g. RULA 1–7 or REBA 1–15 — after combining its body-segment sub-scores.
- Risk band
- A colour-coded severity level (low / medium / high) that maps a numeric score to an ergonomic risk category.
- Anthropometry
- The measurement of human body dimensions. Used to match desk, chair and monitor heights to a person's size in a desk-ergonomics assessment.
- Lifting Index (LI)
- The output of the NIOSH Lifting Equation — the ratio of the weight lifted to the recommended weight limit. An LI above 1 indicates increasing risk of injury.
- Certified ergonomist
- A qualified professional who assesses how work, tools and environments fit the human body. At Ergocure, a certified ergonomist validates every AI-computed score before it reaches a worker.
See the methods in action
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