There's a good reason why some organizations will try "anything" to reduce strains and sprains - They're expensive, pervasive, frustrating and hurt safety record and performance.
And it's likely that for this complex, multi-factored problem there is no one solution. Some search for the holy grail of soft tissue damage prevention; others have given up, focusing instead on other safety problems. There's nothing like feeling frustrated, that you've tried "everything humanly possible" (in the words of a safety professional in an ASSE 2002 SeminarFest program) that lead to either giving up on attempting a creative approach, becoming jaded or blaming others for not listening or acting wisely.
As many organizations have found to their disappointment, there are no easy answers to "solving" these persistent problems. Sure, different interventions - ergonomic design, back schools, simplistic body motion approaches, and others - have reduced injury rates in different companies. But, many safety professionals who are understandably seeking simple resource-efficient answers in times of limitations have too often picked the low-hanging fruit, only reducing injuries to a certain point or for a short time, after which the organization settles into a plateau of still-too-high injuries.
Consultants, professors or "experts" notwithstanding, here are what sustaining and breakthrough solutions to strains and sprains, slips and falls are not. They are:
Not just physical body motion
Not just re-design or putting into place Ergonomic 101 fixes
Not just lifting a box off the floor, Not just training
Not just auditing behavior
Not just administrative controls.
Movement related injuries - soft tissue strains and sprains, slips/trips/falls, hand injuries - are often subjective in nature. It's difficult, if not impossible, to objectively quantify:
Why two people of similar age, size and experience may have completely different injury histories
Why one person and not another turns in a workers comp claim
Which specific off-work factors contribute to cumulative trauma injuries
Personal differences in pain thresholds. Why is one person able to work with or "override" a level of pain that might disable a peer?
Even in some areas that would seem to be to be "obvious," there is controversy. Does anyone, for example, doubt that repetitive work can lead to hand injuries? Yes, hand surgeon Dr. Peter Nathan does. He contends that carpal tunnel syndrome has little, if anything, to do with workplace repetitions; rather, he believes, this wrist-hand problem positively correlates only with a person's level of obesity ("body mass index").
Since strains and sprains are subjective injuries, they have strong psycho-social and organizational components. In order to make considerable and lasting penetration into these problems, it is therefore critical to understand and accommodate these contributing factors.
I suggest something intrinsic to creating significant and lasting safety improvements: The role of the safety professional is to help re-focus senior management away from reducing workers comp claims and towards improvement of health and performance.
