Work Related Accidents In the Healthcare Industry

What are the most common types of shoulder, neck and back injuries in the healthcare sector?

More so than any other profession, nurses and care workers are at serious risk of sustaining career-ending and life-altering injuries while performing their everyday work-related tasks. It’s a well known fact within the profession that many nurses and health carers are forced to end their caring profession early against their will due to serious neck, shoulder or back pain arising out of work-induced musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs).

The types of shoulder, neck and back injuries that are regularly encountered in the caring professions are:

• lower back strain;
• spinal cord damage;
• bulging, herniated or slipped discs;
• damaged vertebrae;
• damaged muscles, ligaments, and tendons;
• rotator cuff injuries; and
• trapped or pinched nerves.

How are work-related injuries caused to healthcare workers?

One of the most common causes of nurses and healthcare workers sustaining shoulder, neck and back injuries in the workplace is the process of transferring, turning or lifting patients, either by cumulative injury – by lifting over and over in the same manner day after day – or by a single specific incident, such as lifting or transferring an excessively heavy patient, or attempting to save a patient from falling.

Routine tasks such as lifting, transferring or turning patients, moving patients from wheelchair to bed and back, or from a commode to a hospital chair and back, are all frequent causes of excessive spinal load pressure which can result in serious neck, shoulder and back injury.