Many traditional sources of injury in health and social care have been eliminated, thanks to technological progress, but not all of them, which is why health and social care is still one of the sectors that reports the highest number of workplace manual handling injuries and musculoskeletal disorders. When you narrow that down by role, the stats can be absolutely horrifying. For example, in America, one in four emergency medical services personnel (i.e. ambulance workers) sustains a career-ending back injury within their first four years of service.
But anyway, rather than quoting stats, I'll focus on some of the sources of injury that haven't been solved with technology.
i) repositioning people with limited mobility into a comfortable position in bed, as in further up or down from the headboard. Done with a slide sheet which is literally supposed to slide along the bed, which is safer for the care recipient than being moved directly, and safer for staff. Ultimately, this is still two staff members, one on each side of the bed, moving a full-size adult by tugging a sheet underneath them. It is amazing how much those sheets don't slide when there is a 100kg person on them. But the OT has been out, and that's the best equipment they can prescribe.
ii) Giving immobile people care in bed, such as dressing, undressing, changing continence aids. Or in order to place them in a sling, so they can use an overhead hoist!
Done by rolling the person backwards and forwards, with a minimum of two people. Manual handling training states that you raise the hydraulic bed to a safe working height for staff, but when you have staff members of different heights on each side of the bed, it's very easy to place the bed at slightly the wrong height for one colleague. Over years and years of working, the cumulative wear and tear builds up.
Then the rolling. When you are concentrating on reassuring and calming someone in bed during care, your focus is on them and their dignity, not your own back, and that's how you hyperextend your back. Especially with larger people. It's the work of a second to stretch just a little bit too far for their convenience, and this is something you're doing day-in, day-out. Cumulative wear and tear.
iii) Pushing wheelchair-users up steep inclines like steep ramps. Again, cumulative wear and tear.
iv) Awkward positions. When you're looking after people, you end up sitting and standing in suboptimal positions because it keeps the other person safe/comfortable. And then the next day, you do it again. For example, I spend hours of my life in awkward positions over the course of the week so I can help people to eat, dress, and wash with dignity. There's no machinery that squats down for you to put someone's fungicidal cream on their toes after their shower.
There are going to be more examples than this, but this is what comes to mind.