Review of proactive measures to reduce costs and future injury rates

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), repetitive strain injuries are the nation’s most common and costly occupational health problem, affecting hundreds of thousands of American workers and costing more than $20 billion a year in workers’ compensation. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly two-thirds of all occupational illnesses reported were caused by exposure to repeated trauma to workers’ upper bodies (wrist, elbow, or shoulder). One common example of such an injury is carpal tunnel syndrome.

Carpal tunnel syndrome is the most common nerve compression disorder of the upper extremity. This condition affects one percent of the general population and five percent of the working population who must undergo repetitive use of their hands and wrists in daily activities. Furthermore, surgical treatment for carpal tunnel syndrome is the most frequent surgery of the hand and wrist, with 463,637 carpal tunnel releases performed annually in the U.S., accounting for $1 billion in direct costs. Carpal tunnel syndrome results in the highest number of days lost among all work-related injuries. Almost half of the carpal tunnel cases result in 31 days or more of work loss, and only 23% of all carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) patients return to their previous professions following surgery, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

Examples of repetitive strain injuries (RSI) include bursitis, carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS), epicondylitis, ganglion, rotator cuff syndrome, tendinitis, tenosynovitis, trigger finger, nerve entrapment disorders, and ulnar tunnel syndrome.

The three primary risk factors for RSI are:

1. Poor posture
2. Poor technique
3. Overuse

The most common RSI signs and symptoms include:

• Tenderness in the affected muscle or joint
• Pain in the affected muscle or joint
• A throbbing (pulsating) sensation in the affected area
• Pins and needles (tingling) in the affected area, especially the hand or arm
• Loss of sensation in the hand
• Loss of strength in the hand
• Weakness, lack of endurance

Ten easy ways to reduce your risk of developing RSI:

1. Take breaks when using your computer. Every hour or so, get up and walk around, get a drink of water, stretch any tight muscles, and look at a distant object to rest your eyes.
2. Use good posture. If you can’t maintain good posture, it’s probably time to take a break from typing. If you constantly struggle to maintain posture, you may need to adjust your workstation or chair, or strengthen the muscles that support good posture.
3. Use an ergonomically optimized workstation to reduce strain on your body.
4. Exercise regularly. Include strengthening, stretching, and aerobic exercises. Yoga and Pilates can be especially helpful.
5. Limit computer use when possible. Don’t email when you can walk down the hall or pick up the phone. It’s not only better for your hands but also more personal. Think before you type to avoid unnecessary editing.
6. Don’t stretch for hard-to-reach keys (e.g., BACKSPACE, ENTER, SHIFT, CONTROL). Instead, move your entire hand so you can press the desired key comfortably. This is crucial when programming or typing in LaTeX, where non-letter keys are used extensively.
7. Let your hands float above the keyboard when typing. Move your entire arm when using the mouse or typing hard-to-reach keys, keeping the wrist joint straight at all times. This allows the larger muscles in your arm, shoulder, and back to do most of the work, instead of relying on the smaller, more vulnerable muscles in your hands and wrists. If you find this difficult, your shoulder and back muscles may need strengthening. It’s okay—and even beneficial—to rest your elbows or wrists when not typing.
8. Use both hands for combination key strokes, such as those involving SHIFT and CONTROL.
9. Avoid gripping writing utensils tightly. Someone should be able to easily pull the pen or pencil from your hand while you’re writing. If you have to press too hard, get a new pen with grip element.
10. Focus treatment on the cause, not just the symptoms. Your doctor or therapist should focus on correcting posture and improving anatomical function so your body can heal itself. Treatment typically includes physical therapy combined with a home exercise program designed to stretch tight muscles and strengthen weak ones. However, no amount of therapy can overcome excessive typing, poor posture, a bad workstation, or poor typing technique.

A ProgressiveHealth Prevention Specialist is a health care professional who has the expertise to support and promote a safer approach to work.  They are skilled specifically in the detection, assessment and care of musculoskeletal discomforts and cross-trained to provide a variety of comprehensive preventive solutions including job assessments, ergonomic analyses, functional testing, work conditioning, and more. For more information, contact ProgressiveHealth at info@ProgressiveHealthUS.com.

The 4 attributes of productive aging

A life-span perspective

A life-span perspective views aging as an adaptive and dynamic process. Aging impacts your body, your mind, and how you interact with the world around you.

Changes that occur as workers age do not take place in a vacuum. In the workplace, the following factors play a role in productive aging:

• The nature of work and its structure
• Workplace relationships
• Work-related events, like career progression and retirement
• Ageist beliefs that may interfere with support of productive aging
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Comprehensive and integrated strategies

Programs to improve productive aging need to be multi-dimensional and well-coordinated. Work Ability and Total Worker Health^® provide useful frameworks for productive aging by emphasizing sustainable strategies.

Work Ability is a worker’s capacity to continue working in their current job. It considers work demands and available resources. Work demands include work organization, supervision, time pressures, and fatiguing work. Resources include health and abilities, job skills, autonomy, and support from your supervisor/colleagues/family.

Strategies to maintain or improve work ability focus on:

• Working Conditions: including ergonomics and safety)
• Employee Health: including safety, health, and well-being)
• Professional Skills: maintaining and developing knowledge and skills
• Psychosocial Factors: how employees experience and react to
  • Organizational policies and practices
  • How their work is designed
  • Inter-personal relationships at work

Carefully plan and implement programs or interventions and target several of the factors above.

Total Worker Health (TWH) integrates workplace safety interventions with activities that advance well-being. A TWH approach comprehensively addresses:

• Safety
• The control of psychosocial hazards and exposures
• The organization of work

Outcomes that recognize the priorities of workers and organizations

A productive aging approach targets outcomes that are important to workers and to organizations, understanding that each can influence the other.

Worker-centered outcomes

• Individual physical and mental health
• Safe work environment
• Job satisfaction
• Ability to meet needs outside of work

Organization-centered outcomes

• Lower healthcare costs
• Reduced injuries and workers’ compensation costs
• Low turnover and absenteeism
• Productivity

Worker-centered and organization-centered outcomes can affect each other. For example, improving worker well-being provides organizational benefits like:

• Reduced absenteeism
• Higher productivity
• Fewer reported workplace injuries

Organizations that transfer knowledge between older and younger workers through mentoring and reverse mentoring programs may increase:

• Skills and collaborations
• Productivity
• Engagement

Focusing on both worker-centered and organization-centered outcomes can contribute to a sustainable culture of health.

Work culture that supports age diversity

Age-related differences between generations can include:

• Attitudes toward work and supervision
• Communication style
• Training needs
• Work habits

Creating a culture supportive of productive aging involves:

• Understanding the age composition of your workforce.
• Discussing generational and age diversity issues.
• Developing programs and policies that address the needs of all workers.
  • For example, family leave policies that appeal to young and older workers.
• Encouraging positive interactions between different age groups.
  • For example, mentoring and reverse mentoring programs.

This culture should recognize and use the unique skills, knowledge, and perspectives of workers in all age groups.

Reference: https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/aging/about/index.html

Beating the Heat

7 tips to help you stay cool, comfortable, and safe

1. Hydrate: Drink plenty of water throughout the day to avoid dehydration, especially when it’s hot. The National Institute on Aging recommends drinking at least 8 cups (64 ounces) of water daily, but you may need more based activity level, sweat volume, and climate.
2. Clothing: Opt for lightweight, loose-fitting, light-colored clothing made from breathable fabrics like cotton. These materials allow air circulation, helping to keep you cooler.
3. Air Movement: Use fans to circulate air and maintain a comfortable indoor temperature. If you don’t have air conditioning at home, consider spending time in public places that offer it.
4. Bathing: Refresh your body with a cool shower or bath; both can reduce your body temp & provide relief from the heat.
5. Stay Inside: Avoid strenuous outdoor activities during the hottest parts of the day (usually 10AM to 4PM). If you need to be outside, try to stay in the shade and take frequent breaks.
6. Gear: Use products like cooling towels, misting fans, or ice packs to cool your body when outdoors. These can be especially useful during sports or other physical activities.
7. Avoid Hot Food & Drink: Eating hot or heavy meals can increase your body temp. Choose light, cold meals and beverages to help you stay cool.

Identifying Heat-related Illnesses
Know the signs and symptoms of heat-related illness, which can range from mild discomfort to life-threatening crisis.

Heat Cramps: Muscle cramping, usually in the legs or abdomen. Excess sweating. Fatigue. Weakness.
Heat Exhaustion: Heavy sweating. Feeling of being very hot. Weakness. Fatigue. Dizziness. Lightheadedness. Nausea or vomiting. Headache. Pale, cool, moist skin. Rapid, shallow breathing. Increased heart rate.
Heat Syncope (Fainting): Feeling lightheaded or dizzy. Fainting or passing out. Pale, cool, moist skin.
Heat Rash: Red clusters of small blisters or pimples on the skin, with a prickling or tingling sensation. Itching.
Heat Edema: Swelling, usually in ankles or feet. Mainly occurs when standing or sitting for long periods in the heat.
Heat Stroke (a medical emergency): Extremely high body temp (>103°F or >39.4°C). Altered mental state or confusion. Hot, dry skin (lack of sweating). Rapid, strong pulse. Nausea or vomiting. Seizures. Unconsciousness.

If you or someone else exhibits symptoms of heat-related illness, it’s essential to take immediate action. Move the person to a cooler place, provide water to drink (if conscious and not vomiting), and try to cool them down using cold packs, wet cloths, or a fan. Seek medical attention promptly, especially in the case of heat exhaustion or heat stroke.

A ProgressiveHealth Prevention Specialist is a health care professional who has the expertise to support and promote a safer approach to work. They are trained to work within the OSHA First Aid rule, leading to a high success of discomfort resolution, reducing unnecessary off-site medical referrals, in addition to restrictions management functions. For more information, contact ProgressiveHealth at info@ProgressiveHealthUS.com.

Returning to Work Post Injury

You have completed your rehabilitation and your treating physician is determining your ability to perform your essential and critical elements of your job. At this point testing for functional abilities in a legally sound and safe way, can provide the factual evidence necessary for the Physician to ensure a “safe” and “sustainable” re-entry into the workplace, and also may provide the necessary confirmation to the employer to build confidence in your return post injury.

Return to work evaluations are often called Functional Capacity, Requirement Evaluations or Fit for Duties Exams – they all include a job specific testing protocol with components of:

• Strength (Whole body and joint specific based on previous injury) – tested dynamically and statically
• Range of motion (Total Spine and Extremities)
• Dexterity / Handling ability
• Cardiovascular Response / Endurance

Once testing is complete, a return to work determination is developed that may result in any of the following:

• Return to full duties
• Return to modified duties
• Return to work with accommodations
• No return to work

If no return is advised, then subsequently a determination if you have reached Maximal Medical Improvement (MMI) – if yes then vocational rehabilitation may proceed or if not, perhaps you could benefit from functional work conditioning to get you to the appropriate level. Return to work testing is essentially, like an X-Ray, except it is used to measure functional abilities, both are tools used by the Physician to direct care and quantify outcomes.

A ProgressiveHealth Prevention Specialist is a health care professional who has the expertise to support and promote a safer approach to work.  They are skilled specifically in the detection, assessment and care of musculoskeletal discomforts and cross-trained to provide a variety of comprehensive preventive solutions including job assessments, ergonomic analyses, functional testing, work conditioning, and more. For more information, contact ProgressiveHealth at info@ProgressiveHealthUS.com.

Implementing Post Offer Pre-Employment Testing (POET)

Too often workers are hired into positions that require heavy or strenuous tasks that they are not physically able to perform safely. This puts both themselves, and others around them, at risk of injury or worse. To combat this, testing should be done on the employee that is being considered for a physically demanding job to ensure the candidates ability to perform that job safely upon starting work. This is what Post Offer Pre-Employment Testing is for.

What is a Post Offer Pre-Employment Test? A POET is a test that is built using an in depth Job Demands Analysis that identifies the essential and strenuous task an employee must be able to perform to do his or her job. These tasks are examined to measure the weight or force behind the task and the frequency an employee must perform this task. Using all of these tasks, a test is developed to put the candidate through a physical exam where they will demonstrate their ability, or lack of ability, to perform these essential job functions safely.

This test has been implemented by hundreds of employers nationally and all show extraordinary results in reduction of injuries in the workplace, reduction of workers compensations claims, and increase in productivity. One of the largest automotive seat fabricators conducted a study at two of their locations. These locations were identical in their job functions, personnel assigned, and geographically similar. In one location they implemented the POET’s and the other they did not. The results of the study were very clear on the impact of the POET testing:

Location 1 implemented the POETS and measured a 1% injury rate over a 1 year period in new hires. 104 tests were performed and of these tests 29.8% were unable to pass the POET. That figures out to be about 31 potential candidates that were at risk of injury.

Location 2 did not implement the POET testing and measured a 21% injury rate in new hires in the 1 year period. The number of injured workers nearly equaled the number of candidates that could not pass the POET test at location 1.

Location 1 avoided an estimated 2.07 million dollars in injury costs, a success directly related to the implementation of POETS.

A ProgressiveHealth Prevention Specialist is a health care professional who has the expertise to support and promote a safer approach to work.  They are skilled specifically in the detection, assessment and care of musculoskeletal discomforts and cross-trained to provide a variety of comprehensive preventive solutions including job assessments, ergonomic analyses, functional testing, work conditioning, and more. For more information, contact ProgressiveHealth at info@ProgressiveHealthUS.com.