Repetitive Stress Injuries in the Workplace: An Overview
Workplace injury usually means injury occurring by accident at the workplace.. Most of us forget that there are injuries that can be caused by repetitive stress. In fact, repetitive stress injuries could be much more dangerous and damaging to employee’s health.
The common misconception about repetitive stress injuries is that if you are involved in heavy lifting jobs, you will suffer from these types of injuries. It’s not true at all. Nearly any jobs that require repetitive tasks can cause these injuries.
What is Repetitive Stress Injuries?
Repetitive stress injury is a term to classify a continuous build-up of damage to muscle, nerves, and tendons caused by repetitive work. It would be any repetitive works like typing keyboards to a shopping mall to assembling, packing, and wrapping things. Even if you are exposed to certain loud sounds or flashy lights, it could also cause repetitive injury at https://apotheca.cc.
Repetitive stress injuries (RSIs) goes by many names: repetitive strain injuries, overuse injuries, cumulative trauma.
What Are The Symptoms?
RSIs can be very dangerous and painful. The common symptoms of these injuries are:
- Numbness
- Tingling
- Fatigue
- Reduction of flexibility
- Light to severe pain in the muscle
If you experience any symptoms like these and your job is repetitive in nature, go to a doctor as soon as possible. Leaving it untreated could be very harmful to you.
Who Are At Risk Of Repetitive Stress Injuries?
More people are at risk of RSIs than you think of. Many jobs that seem normal, harmless, or easy could have risk of RSIs. It’s not always easy to pinpoint the specific job that is responsible for these injuries. The same job could affect different people differently. It is also related to people’s other activities. However, these are the jobs that can create RSIs to the employees-
- Grocery, stock and shopping mall clerks
- Nurses
- Housekeeping cleaners and janitors.
- Bus drivers
- Plumbers and pipefitters
- Firefighters
- Musicians
- Delivery men
- Meat processing workers
- Computer programmers
- Professional athletes
What To Do If You Suspect A Work-related RSIs
If you suspect that you have symptoms that are similar to RSIs, you should give a visit to a doctor. You should take the advice and medication from your doctor. There is nothing to worry about in most cases. But if your doctor says that your injuries are serious and you need proper rest and medical attention to recover, then I suggest you should have a serious thought to get a worker’s comp benefit. Here’s what you should do to get the benefit-
- You should report to your employers.
- You should apply for worker’s comp to the authorities.
- You should represent your case to WSIB.
Talk To A Lawyer
RSIs are a very tricky situation. It’s not get treated like typical injuries. Authorities usually don’t want to be held responsible for this kind of injury. That’s why you need to talk to a lawyer before making a case. An expert worker’s compensation lawyer is always helpful in a situation like this. But before making a case, you should decide whether you should go for it or not. You need to understand that a lawyer can’t help you if your case is not strong enough.
The Bottom Line
Due to the subtleties, RSIs remain unchecked and ignored in many cases. But the workers are suffering even more for these injuries. They can’t make up their minds about what they should do. They are not injured at the workplace directly. The case gets worse when their co-workers are doing fine by doing the same kind of work. Then, they start to doubt themselves and feel inferior in the workplace.
So, we think repetitive stress injuries need extra care than the usual case. If you or anyone near to you face these kinds of problems, don’t hesitate to knock us.
