Preventing Back Injuries In The Workplace

What Does Lower Right Back Pain Feel Like

Lower right back pain has similar attributes as upper back pain, given that the severity and sensation vary according to the person and cause. Some words that people use to describe lower right back pain include:

• Piercing stab
• Heavy weight

Its also common for people with lower right back pain to have pain that radiates from the central pain point to other parts of their back or body.

What Does Upper Right Back Pain Feel Like

Upper right back pain feels differently according to the cause and severity of your condition. Any of the following sensations classify as upper right side back pain:

• Muscle stiffness

In some cases, the pain in the upper right side of your back might come and go. Other times, it might be a chronic sensation.

Do Back Belts Prevent Injury

In recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of workers who rely on back belts to prevent injury during lifting. Back belts, also called back supports or abdominal belts, are currently worn by workers in numerous industries, including grocery store clerks, airline baggage handlers, and warehouse workers. As their use has risen, NIOSH has increasingly been asked for advice on back belt selection. In response to these inquiries, the Institute decided to address a more fundamental question. Rather than ask Which belt will best protect workers? NIOSH researchers began with the questionDo back belts protect workers?

Employers relying on back belts to prevent injury should be aware of the lack of scientific evidence supporting their use.

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Back Injury Prevention Tips

• Back Injury Prevention Tips

Workplace injuries and illnesses can have a significant impact on individuals, workplaces and our community, with musculoskeletal injuries the most common of workplace compensation claims.

According to Safe Work Australia, work-related injury and musculoskeletal disorders led to 90% of serious claims in 2014-15, with the most common traumatic joint/ligament and muscle/tendon injuries .

ABS statistics for 2017-18 show that technicians and trades workers, and community and personal service workers were the occupation groups with the highest rates of people who experienced a work-related injury or illness. Lifting, pushing, pulling or bending was the most common way persons experienced their work-related injury or illness.

Preventing back pain at work

A worldwide study led by the University of Sydney has proven that lower back pain is the most commonly recorded of workplace injuries, ranking higher than any other condition.

Often both severe and costly, back injuries can arise from several ergonomic exposures including heavy lifting, forceful movement, awkward positions and poor workstation set up.

The Mayo Clinic suggests you can take steps to avoid and prevent back pain and injuries at work.

Pay attention to posture

Lift properly

Modify repetitive tasks

Listen to your body

If you must sit for a prolonged period, change your position often. Periodically walk around and gently stretch your muscles to relieve tension.

Prevent workplace injuries

What To Do If I Was Injured At Work

If you sustained a back injury at work, you may be entitled to benefits from your employerâs workersâ compensation insurance policy. If your employer carries workersâ comp insurance, you could receive compensation even if you were at fault for your occupational back injury.

Workersâ compensation benefits are intended to pay for necessary medical expenses related to your injury. If you are unable to return to work for a significant period due to the injury, workersâ comp can also cover a portion of your lost wages.

If you have been injured in a workplace accident, you should:

If you need assistance with understanding your legal options, an attorney at Herrman & Herman can help. An attorney can help you evaluate other options for pursuing the compensation you need. This could include filing a claim with a private insurance provider or filing a lawsuit against your employer.

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How Can We Prevent Back Injury Resulting From Mmh

To prevent occupational back injuries, it is essential to identify the factors of MMH that make the worker more susceptible to injury or that directly contribute to injury.

When efforts to prevent injuries from MMH focus on only one risk factor, they do not significantly reduce the injury rate. A more successful approach combines knowledge of ergonomics, engineering, the work environment, and human capabilities and limitations. The following aspects should be considered:

• organization of work flow
• job design/redesign
• pre-placement procedures, where necessary

The design or redesign of jobs involving MMH should be approached in the following stages:

• eliminate heavy MMH
• pace of work and rest breaks
• improve environmental conditions

How Can An Ergonomics Program Be Implemented

A first step in implementing an ergonomics program would be to evaluate jobs that require frequent lifting twisted or bent postures or pushing or pulling. Redesign these tasks so that:

the load is close to the body. the load is between shoulder and knuckle height. twisted lifts are eliminated. gravity moves the load when possible. slides, chutes, hoists, and hand trucks are used to move heavy loads. weight is reduced to the lowest feasible level.

For more information on how to implement an ergonomics program, call: 1-800-35-NIOSH

To obtain a copy of the NIOSH Lifting Equation, a useful tool for redesigning lifting tasks, call the National Technical Information Service at 487-4650. Please reference order number PB94176930LJM.

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Prolonged Sitting Or Standing

Sitting day after day in front of a desk or computer screen can result in neck pain or upper back pain, as well as low back pain. Neck and upper back pain is generally muscular and disappears after an ergonomic adjustment of your workstation: lowering the screen, adjusting the chair, adjusting the keyboard height, etc.

However, LBI are caused by a slow deterioration of the discs due to pelvic tilt and rounding of the spinal column when you are sitting down. These injuries are even more likely to occur if you must handle heavy objects while sitting.

• Make sure you have a proper chair.
• Adjust the back rest to angle backwards between 110 degrees and 120 degrees and place a 5 cm thick pad at the small of your back.
• Avoid stretching your arms out to reach for objects. Stand up.

Modify Repetitive Tasks For Your Safety

Whether youre regularly lifting objects or taking calls, repetitive tasks strain your body and particularly your back. To prevent back injuries in the workplace, its a good idea to modify repetitive tasks to make them more comfortable and reduce the strain on your back. For example, if you lift items repetitively at work, consider lift-assist tools. If you are regularly taking phone calls, opt for BlueTooth headphones or a headset to ensure youre not cradling a phone between your neck and shoulder for long periods of time.

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Establish An Effective Return

Creating a unique return-to-work plan for you and the injured employee begins as soon as the injury has been reported. But not every RTW plan is the same. They should be tailored to the exact nature of the job, the employees specific injury and their progress, and your own needs throughout the time of recovery.

You should make sure you know exactly what the job duties and requirements are and work closely with the physician to understand what your employees limitations are. Once you have that nailed down, you can begin to give light-duty assignments without running the risk of further injuring the employee. A detailed RTW plan ensures the employee can return to work at an appropriate pace while reducing the need for you to hire additional hands in the meantime.

Tip #: Make Sure That Your Work Station Has Good Ergonomics

This will help you to avoid awkward or uncomfortable postures and movements which can strain your back muscles.

Allow plenty of time to adjust furniture at home in order to create a Home Work Stations with good support for your back, stress relief on wrists and hands, spaciousness around the keyboard-mouse, legroom under your desk etc..

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Tip # : Avoid Lifting Heavy Objects

If a weight is too heavy for you, ask someone to help you lift it.

This will allow you to reduce the risk of injury if anything goes wrong .

Use equipment such as hand trucks or pallet jacks in order to move large items rather than moving them by yourself which puts extra strain on your back muscles and joints.

Determining When You Need Medical Intervention

Right side back pain can be from something as relatively harmless as poor posture to a life-threatening condition like appendicitis or a respiratory infection.

If your back pain comes with symptoms such as a fever, vomiting, cloudy urine, or abdominal pain, you should seek medical help immediately.

Furthermore, if you have sudden severe back pain in your right side that prevents you from going about your day, head to the emergency room. The sooner you seek medical support, the better the chance that youll be able to recover quicker.

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Returning To Work For Injured Employees

How soon a patient is able to return to work will vary depending on the type and severity of injury. Every person heals differently. Once your employee begins the stabilization program at SpineCare, the SpineCare team will reassess your injured employee’s ability to return to work.

Clinical research has consistently shown that early return to work is associated with better overall outcome and lower costs. As back care providers in today’s market, we’re aware that managing health care costs is vital to employers. That’s why, for example, we offer a unique “shared risk” global fee package which allows you to anticipate the costs from the outset and meet injured employees’ needs.

To facilitate return to work for the injured worker, the employer can follow the return to work recommendations provided by the SpineCare team. A well thought out and organized modified duty program to transition your injured employee back to work greatly facilitates our goal of early reactivation and return to work, both of which have shown to improve outcomes and reduce costs.

Make It Easy By Using The Right Equipment

Whenever possible, reduce or eliminate the manual handling of materials. Can these same tasks be accomplished with the use of a mechanical aid? These can include cranes, hoists, lift tables, dollies, carts, hand trucks, and forklifts. When using mechanical aids, be sure your workers know these safety rules-of-thumb:

• Make sure the equipment selected is appropriate to the task and inspect it before putting it to use.
• When stacking a load, place the heaviest items on the bottom and keep the weight concentrated between the wheels.
• When necessary, secure the load with tie-down straps
• When using equipment such as dollies, push the load instead of pulling this gives the operator more control and greater leverage.
• Never allow the use of a forklift or other lifting aids unless the worker has received all necessary training and are authorized by your management to do so.

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Strengthen Your Core To Protect Your Back

Your back and your core work in tandem to help you do just about everything. From standing up straight to lifting, your back and core do much of the work of stabilizing your body. Working to strengthen your core with regular abdominal exercises and stretches can help take some of the strain off of your back when youre doing a lot of lifting and repetitive motion at work.

Other Problems Associated With Back Pain

Too often we forget that backaches rarely occur on their own. Repetitive handling can also cause other types of injuries. Many times, back pain is accompanied by lacerations, crush injuries and fractures caused by uneven surfaces, falling objects, a fall by the operator and impacts. Musculoskeletal stress is also harmful for other joints and muscles in the human body, mainly at the neck, shoulders, elbows, knees, hips and fingers. Fatigue can also be a factor leading to increased heart rate and blood pressure and sometimes respiratory problems.

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How Can We Decrease Mmh Demands

Where possible, use mechanical aids. The next step is to decrease the manual material handling demands. There are several ways to achieve this:

• Plan the work flow. Often poor planning of the work flow results in repeated handling of the same object .
• Reduce the weight by assigning two people to lift the load or by splitting the load into two or more containers. Using light plastic containers may also decrease the weight of the load versus other containers.
• Change the type of MMH movement. Lowering objects causes less strain than lifting. Pulling objects is easier than carrying. Pushing is less demanding than pulling.
• Change work area layouts. Reducing the horizontal and vertical distances of lifting substantially lowers MMH demands. Reducing the travel distances for carrying, pushing or pulling also decreases work demands.
• Assign more time for repetitive handling tasks. More time reduces the frequency of handling and allows for more work/rest periods.
• Alternate heavy tasks with lighter ones to reduce the build-up of fatigue.

Tips For Alleviating Right Side Back Pain At Home

Minor cases of right side back pain will often go away on their own. However, you can speed up the recovery processor at the very least, make yourself more comfortableby implementing the at-home strategies below.

• Apply a hot water bottle
• Soak in a hot bath
• Use an ice pack
• Do yoga and stretching
• Dont rest too long

In many cases, its natural to want to rest when you have pain in the right side of your back. However, studies show that long periods of bed rest can increase pain and cause people to take more days off from work than if they remained active.

Finally, you can care for your back pain at home by using over-the-counter nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medicine like Ibuprofen.

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How Do You Eliminate Heavy Mmh

Consider using powered or mechanical handling systems if eliminating the MMH tasks completely is not possible. Mechanical aids lower the risk for back injury by reducing the worker’s physical effort required to handle heavy objects.

Manual handling such as lifting and carrying can be easier and safer if mechanized by using lift tables, conveyors, yokes or trucks. Gravity dumps and chutes can help in disposing of materials. However, it is essential that the worker is properly educated and trained in the safe use of the available equipment.

The Spinal Column: A More Or Less Solid Structure

Doing things as simple as carrying a parcel, driving your car or bending over to tie your shoes can cause you to feel sudden back pain, as if you’ve been stabbed in the back. Your back locks up and you’re immobilized, unable to straighten up or make the slightest movement. In just these few seconds, you have joined the thousands of others who suffer from back pain.

A few weeks of rest is usually all it takes for your back to recover but sometimes more drastic treatments are required, such as traction and surgery. Some people never recover. They are left with a permanent disability and from then on are unable to perform any strenuous work involving their spine.

Your spinal column is truly an architectural marvel. It is made up of vertebrae that are able to support more than one hundred times their own weight. These vertebrae are separated by discs flexible enough to allow for flexion and rotation in all directions, often under the stress of a heavy load. The vertebrae are concave to allow the nerves and blood vessels to pass along the spine and they are held in place by a group of structural muscles that are designed to function throughout your life. But your spine is not solid as a rock.

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Train Employees On Proper Lifting Technique

Teach your employees to avoid lifting heavy materials early or late in the work day. Lifting heavy objects in the morning before their bodies are warmed up and ready to go can cause a back muscle injury, as can lifting when theyre already sore and tired at the end of the day.

You should also encourage workers to use team lifts whenever possible, even when they think they can lift an object on their own . This will help distribute the burden of the load to multiple people, reducing the risk of injury for everyone involved.

When lifting any object, whether on their own or with team members, employees should avoid putting unnecessary strain on their backs and focus on lifting with their leg muscles while activating their core muscles. Teach them to squat low, arch their backs and lift from the ground every time they go to pick something up, no matter how light it might seem.

This takes the pressure off the back and gets their abdominal muscles and leg muscles the strongest muscle group in the body to do the hard work.

Tip #: Standup Every 30

Avoid sitting for long periods of time as this also puts strain on the backs of people who work at desk jobs .

If you have a job where you spend most of your day sitting down then use an anti-fatigue mat beneath your feet. Make sure that you stretch your legs and get up to move around every hour or so during the course of the work day.

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