Shoulders are all too easily injured. And once they are, recovery might be slow, putting a worker out of action and creating production hassles. Here are some tips for preventing these injuries.
The shoulder is a ball-and-socket joint and is, in fact, the most mobile joint in the body, allowing 230 degrees of motion vertically and enabling us to reach out to either side or across the body in front.
If any of your workers have to reach, lift and carry, bend, or twist their bodies or perform other activities that place them in a nonneutral posture, they may be at risk for shoulder injuries.
Once you identify shoulder injury risk factors in your workplace, take these steps to prevent problems:
- Minimize lifting. Provide mechanical assists, such as carts, slings, dollies, and jacks, to raise objects and hold them in place. Put materials as close to the area where they will be used as practical. For example, rather than piling roofing materials in a single spot, place them in different areas across the roof.
- Lighten the load. When lifting cannot be eliminated, or when objects (such as tools) must be held at arm’s length, ensure that the items being lifted are as light as possible. For example, a corded electric drill might be lighter than a battery drill. In some cases, lighter-weight building materials may be practical in construction. For heavy objects, a team lift can reduce the strain on individual workers.
Whatever safety meeting you need, chances are you’ll find it prewritten and ready to use in BLR’s Safety Meetings Library on CD. Try it at no cost or risk. Here’s how.
- Control motion. One of the most dangerous situations is a "save"—when a load shifts, or in a healthcare setting when a patient slips, and a worker attempts to prevent a fall. Minimizing the possibility of shifting or falling loads can help prevent these situations. For example, securing a load or using a jack or brace that holds a work piece in place may prevent not just shoulder injuries but crushing accidents as well. In a healthcare setting, using a patient-lifting device that secures the patient with a belt or sling before moving can save the patient from a fall and ensure that the healthcare worker doesn’t have to risk a shoulder injury.
- Improve the grip. Lifting requires more force, and is more difficult (and more likely to cause injury) when there’s no easy way to grip an object—for example, drywall panels. Removable suction handles can be applied to flat surfaces in some cases. In a healthcare facility, gait belts and other devices can give healthcare workers an easy spot for holding unstable patients.
- Encourage rest and stretching. Workers can minimize damage from lifting, overhead and arm’s length work, and other jobs that put stress on the shoulder joints by taking frequent very short breaks (15-20 seconds) and gently stretching to relieve tension in shoulder muscles and ligaments.
We challenge you to NOT find a safety meeting you need, already prewritten, in BLR’s Safety Meetings Library. Take up our challenge at no cost or risk. Get the details.
Train to Prevent Injuries
BLR’s Safety Meetings Library provides the perfect opportunity for conducting frequent and engaging training on all kinds of workplace safety issues, including hand hazards and protections. This cost-effective resource provides safety meetings on a broad range of safety topics, as well as supporting handouts, quizzes, posters, and safety slogans.
All told, the CD provides you with more than 400 ready-to-train meetings on more than 100 key safety topics—a shrewd investment in this time of tight safety budgets. In addition to the meetings’ supplemental quizzes and handouts, you also get relevant regulations (OSHA’s CFR 29), a listing of the most common safety violations cited by OSHA, and case studies of actual OSHA cases and their outcomes.
Safety Meetings Library lets you choose from a variety of training approaches, including:
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Mandatory—Sessions that are OSHA-required
- Comprehensive—Sessions with broadest coverage of a topic
- 7-Minute—Short, simple, targeted sessions to fit tight schedules
- Initial—A session used as introductory training on a topic
- Refresher—Sessions that follow up on or reinforce previous training
- Tool Box Talk—More informal reinforcement of a topic
- PowerPoint®—Graphic presentations for comprehensive initial or refresher training
- Hands-on—A session in which there are training activities
- Spanish—Including Spanish language handouts and quizzes coordinated with English sessions
You can get a preview of the program by using the links below. But for the best look, we suggest a no-cost, no-obligation trial. Just let us know and we’ll arrange it for you.