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Elusive Solution To Back Injuries; Ruined Lives; Wasted $Billions

Several years ago an Egyptologist (expert at Egyptian history) presented me with the oldest recordable back claim on record: 2,500 years ago a physician treated an unlucky laborer who had hurt his back. It is a fascinating peek into history and shines light onto the fact that the ubiquitous back injury has maimed and ruined lives well beyond the time any of us have been involved with workplace injuries.

Imagine if we could quantify the volume of pain and the amount of money spent on this musculoskeletal plague?

Back injuries have become so "usual" that we, as a society, have accepted them as one of the potholes of life that 80% of us will step into at some time. Research into back injuries resides in the domain of medical science where billions of dollars per annum await the next best fix for wrenched backs and bulging disks. Yes, one more symptom of how our society has accepted back injuries as inevitable by aiming research at post injury event "fixes" versus causes and prevention.

 The solution to back injuries -- boy oh boy, there are lots of choices. MDs speak of intradiscal pressure; doctors of chiropractic speak of subluxations; Eastern medicine refers to congested chi; and orthopedic surgeons' surgery calendars stay booked for weeks ahead. There are a lot of back fixers out there. It pays well.

I want to know: where were they before you got your back injury? Who do you go see BEFORE you have the life-altering injury? That is the ultimate question.

I have proof in my file cabinet that for at least 2,500 years there has been no wholesale solution to help you, your spouse, your child -- who may be carrying a twenty-pound backpack to school -- or your coworker to causatively PREVENT the life-changing back injury.

 
We knew something was wrong when the common refrain from management was, "Our employees don't listen."

Something was amiss because there isn't one sane human being that would look forward to having back pain. If you polled employees and asked if they would be interested in preventing life-altering pain there wouldn't be a lot of equivocal head scratching, stammering, or indecision. Yet I was being told that employees wouldn't pay attention or buy-in to learning how to avoid job-threatening, jaw-clenching pain.

 
Your employees are starving to know how to prevent strain/strain injuries to themselves and their families. Happily, the easiest people to train on how to prevent back injuries are the "aging" workforce. What fifty-year-old enjoys new pains or a body that will no longer allow them to do activities they have enjoyed since childhood?

The results speak for themselves:

• 77% reduction in workers' compensation costs

• Workers' compensation budget plummeting from $1.4 million to $80,000 in two years

• Hospital sees cost of sprain/strains drop by over 60%

• 20,000 employees trained to a result of a 63% reduction in back and neck injuries

• Unions paying money out of their own safety budget to have their members helped

These statistics and stories are from clients that believed us when we told them that back injuries and other sprain/strains were now preventable. They agreed that the old way of reacting only after an injury occurred was no longer affordable.

 
However, I don't believe there was any new startling discovery made in this arena. In other words, the science of lifting, bending, sitting/typing, pushing, pulling had been discovered and agreed upon years ago.

The key that unlocked the solution to preventing back claims was, "How do you get employees to listen" and to embrace these scientific principles?

How can we get nurses, firefighters, policemen, factory workers, warehouse personnel, office workers, truck drivers, bus drivers, custodians, front-end cashiers, trades people, lab workers, librarians, union and non-union employees to lower their personal barriers to learning to accept help and to decide to change their physical behaviors for their own well-being?

 
The R&D is done. The results are in from across the U.S. and Canada. Back injuries can be prevented whether one is "aging" or in junior high.

We found out that almost all employees are extremely hungry to learn how to be pain free. Have you ever delivered training to employees and heard complaints that the training was too short???!!

Have you ever completed trainings and received written thank you notes from your employees for providing it?

Employees' acceptance is the first indicator that injuries will go down. Without the initial buy-in from employees there is virtually no chance for a significant return on the investment.

The timing couldn't be better for you. A new economy now prevails. Lay-offs are up and profits are down. Workers' comp costs must be attacked without lethargy or tacit acceptance that nothing can be done about it.

 
Don't forget to attend one of the trainings yourself. Life is much more fun when you are pain free. You just need to learn how -- BEFORE that back injury happens.

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