About Back Pain in the Workplace
This gem from the British Medical Journal recently came across my desk.
“…recovery from low back pain is much slower than previously thought and even slower again for those with a compensable injury.’
The strongest predictor of delayed recovery was if the episode of low back pain was compensable: compensation halved the chances of recovery.
Surprise, surprise! I tell organisations that they need to move heaven and earth to keep their staff as far away from doctors, workers’ compensation clerks, and case managers as possible.
Going to their local doctor to diagnose the cause of a musculoskeletal problem is the quickest way to feed them into the worker’s compensation black hole. The doctor will ask people if they work. When they say ‘Yes’, the doctor will tell them that work caused their problem. End of story; claim form on the way!
Before you can say, ‘Bob’s your uncle,’ they’re down at the beach house with a 20kg lighter package and their backs fixed. Hello!
Don’t care
Most worker’s compensation insurers don’t care much about how long it takes to get someone back to work. It’s not their money that they’re playing with. They want you to have a case manager (usually an ex-nurse who wouldn’t have a clue what to do with you except feed you onto an army of rubbers, crunchers, heaters, vibrators, and dopers).
You’ll get X-rayed, prodded and poked, but no one will help you diagnose what’s wrong with you. They’ll presume that the misalignment of the bones at the lower part of your spine was caused by the organisation you work for.
There are two questions you need to resolve:
- How can you protect yourself from musculoskeletal dysfunction?
- How can you restore poor function to good?
I work for many organisations where people sit in an office all day. It beats me how someone can get ‘injured’ cooped up in a cage six feet square.
Well, of course, they can’t. They’re not injured; they’re dysfunctional, and the dysfunction is personally generated.
What usually happens is that over the weeks, months, years and decades, people gradually become more dysfunctional as they grow weaker and tighter. By far and away, most people don’t have a regular strength and flexibility training program. The chair can’t protect them from that.
And just because you’ve given someone an $800 chair isn’t a guarantee that they’ll sit in it properly or start doing the strength and flexibility exercises needed to get themselves back in better alignment.
This being the case, it’s up to organisations to
- Audit the risk of musculoskeletal dysfunction.
- Put in a firewall between personally generated musculoskeletal dysfunctions and genuine work-related injuries.
- Put in train a 10-minute-a-day strength and flexibility training program for all staff.
- Establish regular prehab/rehab sessions for people already in pain from musculoskeletal dysfunction and those at grave risk because of their lack of strength and flexibility.
- Throw some responsibility for managing the problem back on managers and supervisors by including key performance indicators in their duty statements.
The Back Pain Cause
Contrary to the best medical advice available in most countries around the world, musculoskeletal dysfunction does have a cause. This applies to yourself or anyone you know complaining of musculoskeletal pain.
The pain is a symptom. Pain is the mechanism by which your body tells you that your skeleton is out of alignment and the muscles supporting it are not strong enough to do reasonable, everyday tasks. It’s telling you to do something to get it back in alignment.
The medical industry can’t identify the problem because musculoskeletal pain (at least in its early stages) is not a medical problem; it’s a fitness problem, and you can’t solve a fitness problem with a medical solution.
In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned and don’t go to doctors for things doctors can’t fix.
Regards and best wishes
John Miller
If I can help you with more information, please feel free to contact me at this link https://www.globalbackcare.com/contact-us/
