September 28th, 2016
MSDs are the leading cause of pain suffering and disability in the American work place.
It’s true and it’s unfortunate!! MSDs are preventable. A simple change in philosophy would empower your organization to prevent nearly all MSDs.
Your employees wouldn’t have to suffer through the painful experience that can have long lasting effects. Your organization wouldn’t suffer high work compensation fees.
The average ergonomics client reduces related workers’ compensation cost by 78% within 4 years of implementing the program.
To begin you need to understand what MSDs are and what they are not. MSDs are an injury or disorder to the human body’s Musculoskeletal (movement system). The system is made up of tendons, ligaments, nerves, soft tissue designed to let your body move. What Happens or causes this condition over a period of time, micro trauma to the soft tissues begin to outrun the body’s recovery system. This creates a muscle imbalance that overtime develops into MSDs. This includes Carpal Tunnel, Tendonitis, Muscle Strain, Ligament Sprain, Neck Tension, Thoracic outlet Compression Rotator Cup Tendonitis, Radio Tunnel Syndrome, Trigger Finger, Mechanical Back Syndrome, Degenerated Disc Disease, Ruptured / Herniated Disc and many more.
What MSDs are not……
It is not a repetitive motion injury or an ergonomic injury. Using any term other than Musculoskeletal disorder to describe these injuries is an attempt to designate a singular cause to the injury.
One of the biggest MSD mistakes you can make is to designate a singular cause of MSDs. If you fall into this trap prepare to constantly be baffled that MSDs keep plaguing your work force. If you believe a repetitive motion is the cause, then you would reduce that right. That should be good enough….. Wrong
You have missed awkward postures, excessive force, body mechanics, work practices, work readiness, clean workspace and many other causes. Sounding pretty intense by now.
The place to start is knowledge in your area of concern, what are the most common injuries, and the most costly in the work place today. You can’t prevent it until you know the cause.
This will be continued on the next blog entry. We hope this helps you make some great decisions to be a great organization to work for.