Injuries Chiropractic Prevention Disc Therapy Back Injury

Many companies, have come to depend upon back supports as a protection against back ache, strains and sprains. Unfortunately, the benefit of these supports can backfire when employees wear them the entire work day. Back injuries, back injury, lower back pain, upper back pain, back injury prevention, back injury settlement, auto accident, back therapy, chiropractic doctor, disc injury, herniated disc, hip injury, injuries, injury lawyer, injury rehabilitation, low back pain.

The tightly fitting brace can actually cause the employee's muscles to weaken from lack of use. The abdominal muscles should be strong in order to support the spine when you lift an to avoid back injuries. To be most beneficial, a back support should only be worn when needed for lifting, the brace is secondary in value to proper lifting techniques.

Another important area, is the overall fitness of the workforce. It is to a company's benefit to promote good health by offering a comprehensive employee wellness plan that includes exercise, nutrition and education. Back injuries problems can be caused by or at least worsened by obesity, poor muscle tone, smoking, sedentary lifestyles, etc.. Supporting lifting devices can help reduce strain on employees' backs, and ergonomically correct work stations are also beneficial.

However, no amount of prevention will eliminate all back injuries. When an employee is injured, it is important for your health care network to include physiatrists, orthopedic and neurosurgeons, as well as trained spine therapists who will treat workers effectively on the back injury and return them to work quickly.

Because the back is such a subjective area of the body to treat, look for a medical staff and program that specialize in back care. The approach should be holistic and should include work conditioning hardening programs. Also, find out about the program's return-to-work ratio.

Finally, cooperate with physicians who want to get workers back on the job quickly, even if it means making adjustments to allow for temporary work restrictions.

Studies show that when employees are off the job for three months or more, the odds of them ever returning to work are 50 percent or less. Once off work for 12 months, only one in 100 workers will return to the job.

Back care can be effective and can prevent one-time injuries from becoming lifelong chronic problems. Author Dr. Kristi Self is a physiatrist with the St. Anthony Spine Center.

- I am a medical-surgical RN who is distressed by the epidemic of preventable back injuries occurring to nurses.

There is a lot of talking about the nursing shortage these days. Hospitals are restructuring their nursing staff; grants are being issued; research studies are being presented. What surprises me is that very little is being said about the epidemic of preventable back injuries to nurses.

Back injuries are occurring within the nursing population at an alarming rate. Every day in the U.S., 9,000 health care workers sustain a disabling injury while on the job. In evaluating studies related to back injury, Owen reports that "thirty-eight percent of 503 respondents had suffered back pain severe enough to require leave from work. Registered nurses and nurses aides are the number one back-injured group in most of the United States. Owen also refers to "Another study in England [that] found that 12% of all nurses intending to leave nursing permanently cited back pain as either a main or contributing factor." Given the epidemic of nursing shortages in America (of up to 500,000 too few nurses), patients might never see a registered nurse while in the hospital. This is an unbelievable catastrophe.

Nurses are lifting up to thousands of pounds every day. How many 150-pound patients does one nurse lift in 1 day? Lifting patients up in bed, transfers from bed to wheelchair, wheelchair to bed, etc., is estimated at 1.8 tons per day. Here's a news flash: there is no ergonomically safe way to manually lift patients. All that we have been taught about squatting, not bending our backs, and moving objects closer to us is useless in preventing back injuries. The experts have known this for more than 10 years.

The weight of an adult patient exceeds tolerance limits set by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health or compressive forces to the lumbar spine. Since the nucleus of spinal discs does not possess nociceptors, a nurse may not feel that the discs are being damaged from repetitive lifting. When the damage finally extends to the annulus of the disc, pain will then occur. Of course, then it is too late.

Besides back injuries to nurses if that were not enough, there is the possibility of causing injuries to our patients as we "1-2-3 heave-ho" them. These injuries can include: nerve damage, shearing abrasions, dislocated shoulders, etc. We are inadvertently injuring those who are placed in our charge by continuing to use this archaic method of patient handling: 1-2-3 give them a swing; 1-2-3 drag their bodies up in a bed; 1-2-3 plop them in a chair.

Most of us would gladly continue lifting our patients and sacrificing our backs if there were no alternative. But, there is no need for us to lift. Efficient equipment is widely available, and implementation of lift teams has been proven successful at reducing back injuries. Entire European nations have adopted no manual lift policies; yet the nursing staff of America behaves as if we were stevedores on a dock (in fact, due to proper lift equipment, dock workers are less injured than nurses). There is a joke going around. Three dock workers are faced with lifting a two-ton box. One worker asks the others to