If your workers must reach, lift and carry, bend, or twist their bodies or perform other activities that place them in a nonneutral posture, their shoulders may be at risk.
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.
The fact that the shoulder is so mobile and so versatile also makes it vulnerable to injury. As we said in yesterday’s Advisor, although shoulder injuries only account for 13% of MSDs overall, they tend to be the most severe, requiring a median of 21 days away from work to recover.
Once you identify shoulder injury risk factors in your workplace, make sure employees take these steps to help 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 is 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 may be lighter than a battery drill. Lighter-weight building materials, such as drywall, can be used in project specifications. For heavy objects such as furniture, having a team of workers lift them can reduce the weight carried by individuals.
Today, we’ll focus on preventing back injuries and tomorrow we’ll cover shoulder injuries.
All the safety training you need in one program: 25 subjects, one low price. It’s BLR’s Safety Training Presentations. Try it at no cost. Get the details.
- Control motion. One of the most dangerous situations is a “save”—when a load shifts or a patient slips and workers attempt a save to prevent a fall. Minimizing the possibility of shifting or falling loads can help prevent these situations. For example, a patient-lifting device that secures the patient with a belt or sling before moving may save the patient from a fall so that the healthcare worker doesn’t have to. A jack or brace that holds a work piece in place may prevent not just shoulder injuries but crushing and other injuries as well.
- 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. Drywall panels, for example, don’t have handles, and neither do hospital and nursing home patients. Removable suction handles and similar temporary handles can be applied to flat surfaces, and 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 arms’ length work by taking frequent, very short breaks (15 to 30 seconds) and gently stretching hard-working muscles.
Try Safety Training Presentations at no cost and no risk. Find out more.
Train to Prevent MSDs
If you’ve been looking for quality back safety and ergonomic training or training for a wide range of other safety concerns, look no farther. Safety Training Presentations gets you off to a good start with 25 core PowerPoint® safety presentations, each one responsive to either an OSHA training requirement or to common causes of workplace accidents. All are customizable, so you can add your specific hazards or safety policies.
Each lesson also includes completion certificates, sign-in sheets, evaluation forms, and training records. In short, it contains everything you need to motivate, reinforce, retain, and transfer new knowledge—and document that you did so.
Safety Training Presentation topics covered include:
—Bloodborne Pathogens
—Back Safety
—Emergency Action
—Ergonomics
—Fire Prevention
—PPE
—Welding/Cutting/Brazing
—Portable Power Tool Safety
—Scaffolds
—Lockout/Tagout
—Forklift Operator Safety
—Confined Space Safety
—Fall Protection
—Respiratory Protection
—and more!
Of course, training needs change as OSHA introduces new requirements or as new work practices and technologies bring new hazards. To cover this, you receive a new CD every 90 days you’re in the program, each containing five additional or updated topics.
Just as important for those on a budget (and who isn’t these days?), the cost of these presentations works out to under $20 each.
We’ve arranged for Advisor subscribers to get a no-cost, no-obligation look at Safety Training Presentations for 30 days. Feel free to try a few lessons with your own trainees. Please let us know, and we’ll be glad to set it up.