Published November 2001

Assess risks, take action
to prevent injury

By Kimberly Hilden
Herald Business Journal Assistant Editor

Making injury prevention a workplace priority is just good “business sense,” said Cathy Wirth, a Safety Trainer and Consultant for Keeping Bodies Working Inc.

It’s a point she makes when she performs workplace risk assessments and teaches employers and employees the value of ergonomics to prevent work-related musculoskeletal disorders, or WMSDs, which include back strain, tendinitis and carpal tunnel syndrome.

For the injured, the costs are many, Wirth said: the pain itself, the cost of treatment, the time used to drive back and forth to visit doctors and physical therapists, and the possibility that the injury could affect a person’s ability to continue working.

And for the employer, a series of injuries could show up in lost production, increased insurance rates and possible citations “if it’s a serious injury or if Labor and Industries regulations haven’t been followed” said Wirth, a Health and Safety Technician who started Keeping Bodies Working in 1994.

According to the state Department of Labor and Industries, WMSDs strike more than 50,000 Washington workers each year, with annual workers’ compensation costs exceeding $411 million.

While the cost of WMSDs adds up to a large sum, preventing them in the office environment doesn’t have to break the bank.

“The office is really a pretty simple fix for almost everybody because you can do pretty easy things — you don’t have to buy a whole new set of office furniture in most instances,” Wirth said.

Start with an ergonomic assessment, provide awareness education and develop solutions as you go along, she said. The key is to understand the principles of ergonomics — decreasing stress that over time can lead to injuries, she said.

For instance, if a person’s job requires them to do a lot of document reading, you can take the stress off the neck by placing the documents on a binder or a document holder, Wirth said. The extra height decreases the degree of flexion, or bend, required by the neck.

If the employee is required to do a lot of talking on the phone and typing, a headset might be in order, Wirth said. Neck and shoulder muscles become stressed when they must stay contracted to hold the phone, and if continued over time, that stress can cause tension and injuries.

Also, assess the degree of flexion in the elbows and wrists and adjust keyboard and chair heights to reduce the stress on those body parts.

As for the chair, it doesn’t have to cost a fortune, Wirth said, but it should offer lower back support; the front of the seat should be rounded down so that it doesn’t cut off circulation to the legs; and it should be adjustable “so that it can offer varied positions throughout the day or adjust to fit different people.”

Along with raising workers’ awareness of injury risk factors, Wirth teaches the importance of listening to the body and responding to what it has to say in terms of pain.

“For most of us, we just tend to say, ‘I’ll take care of you later,’ when our body has an ache or pain,” Wirth said. “Then we get caught up in something else and we never go back to figure out what was going on in (our) shoulder. ... We keep going forward until ‘all of a sudden’ I can’t raise my arm.”

But it really wasn’t “all of a sudden,” and the sooner the pain is addressed, “the less time it takes to recover and the less expensive it is to solve the problem,” she said.

For more information on Keeping Bodies Working, call Wirth at 425-345-9190 or send e-mail to ergosafe@aol.com.

Back to the top/November 2001 Main Menu