AcroMat’s Post

Transcript

- There's a definite hierarchy in the development of a musculoskeletal disorder. And musculoskeletal disorders, as you probably know, are the -itis's, you know, the, the, the tendonitis and the epicondylitis. And they are the, the injuries that that affect the musculoskeletal system. So it typically starts at the base of the pyramid. But I'm gonna start with the top of the pyramid, because there are times when someone develops a musculoskeletal injury and it's an event, you think, well, that's when it happened. There was a pop, there was a sharp pain, there was some event you were doing where your tissues actually failed. And this can happen. But in reality, for the most part, where musculoskeletal injuries happen are, or where they begin are at the base of the pyramid, right? So fatigued or stressed tissue. And this can happen from something that's highly repetitive, where the process doesn't offer work-rest recoveries, extended shifts, high forces, but that tissue becomes stressed. And what we know through an abundance of research is that stressed and fatigued tissue is far more likely to, to get injured, right? It just doesn't, doesn't have the resources within those structures to, to continue on with healthy actions without injury necessarily. The, the problem here with the fatigued and stressed tissue is that an employee might not know it, there might not be any associated discomfort, but that is the next step. If tissue stays stressed long enough, you'll most likely develop a discomfort. And discomfort tends to be transient. It comes and goes, you might experience it, my back gets really tight after lunch, but then it goes away when I go home. The issue here is that you never know when an employee is going to report a discomfort. Are they gonna report it immediately? Are they going to go, I don't know what's going on here. And then a few months later, you might hear about it. So, but this is vital because where you have discomfort, you also have the opportunity to make it easy fix. You know, an early fix is an easy fix. So this is, this is your catch zone. It's where you want to identify what's going on and implement some solutions, and then maybe put in your back pocket, Hey, we gotta look at this process a little more closely later on. Now, when discomfort is there for a while and tissue - Continues to be stressed, it most likely progresses to pain. And, and pain tends not to be as transient. It's a little bit more steady state. And this is where it starts to affect your employees' life outside of work, whether it's their sleep, their recreation, their ability to participate in recreational activities. So we never want pain, right? We all want our employees to leave work at the end of the day safely and comfortably. And, but pain kind of stays with us. And when it stays long enough, it starts to affect function. So it starts to affect things like your, your strength, your ability to lift or carry, push pull, the amount of torque force you're able to generate, your range of motion, how high you can lift, how low you can bend, all of those kinds of things. And that's a real point of concern. And where many employers and employees say, I, we need some medical advice here. And that's, that's where it bumps up to the top of the pyramid. And you may have a recordable injury. Now, unfortunately, leaders may not hear about any of the lower parts of the pyramid until it becomes a recordable injury. And, and then that usually, you know, that, that sends up, you know, red flares and, and, and, well, we have these recordable injuries. What are we going to do about this? And, and, and that, that, that should be a call to action. And, and that should be addressed. But, but the reality is we need to realize that the solution is at the bottom of the pyramid, right? And so I think it's important to foster this understanding throughout the organization. There was, I don't, maybe I'm old, but there, there was a, there used to be this old saying, and related to savings and finance or whatever, that if you take care of the pennies, the dollars take care of themselves. So if you take care of the, the things lower on the pyramid, the discomfort, the fatigue, the stress that will impact your recordable injury rates. So it, it's just a general concept that that helps put everything in perspective.