RSI Awareness Day
Are you shouting about RSI Awareness Day? – We are!
International Awareness Day has not been utilised much here in the UK but with your help, we can tackle common painful and debilitating injuries.
Did you know?
“Almost 10 million Britons suffer pain almost daily resulting in a major impact on their quality of life and more days off work” – The British Pain Society
Of course not everyone’s pain is work related – but Trade Union Congress reported:
“British businesses lose an estimated 4.9 million days to employee absenteeism… this is clearly a problem that needs to be addressed”.
Although HWS aim to tackle this issue within the workplace, RSI doesn’t always originate from workplace habits but activities undertaken at home, including mobile devices such as a laptop, tablet or even mobile phone. While it’s also believed that carpal tunnel syndrome, for example, can also be caused by playing an instrument. RSI may indeed be triggered at home but perhaps these symptoms are being aggravated further at the office?
See: ‘The future of ergonomics’ feat. Guest Blogger John Andrews
What can we do to avoid RSI?
It might sound like an obvious question but it is important for managers and their teams to first recognise RSI symptoms. Then address them to your manager or occupational health therapist as soon as possible to establish ways to modify your tasks to relieve the symptoms.
Perhaps you should be taking more regular breaks or what’s known as ‘micro breaks’… even walking over to you colleagues instead of emailing them, counts! Also, take note of your ‘Easy Reach Zone‘ too.
Maybe RSI Awareness Day is also a good time to quit those bad habits such as cradling your phone between your ear and your shoulder? If you spend long periods of time on the telephone, you should consider using a headset.
As we highlighted in a previous post “office workers claim to experience RSI symptoms for up to a year before reporting their issue”.
See: Stigma of RSI – If you are a manager, perhaps this would help you to be extra supportive of your team addressing these issues? After all prevention is always better than a cure!
Many organizations are still not keeping up to date with regular DSE’s; with many workers reporting that they have not had a work station assessment in the past 12 months.
According to a recent article in the Daily Mail:
“Badly set up workstations cost companies more than £7bn a year in sick pay”.
Food for thought?