Causes of back injury

What causes a back injury?

A back injury can cause anything from mild discomfort to major paralysis.

Unfortunately many occupations such as construction, nursing, retail and factory work can place significant demands on your back. Particularly in the construction and manufacturing industry accidents at work often involve falls from a height and crush incidents which can cause significant body injury.

Back injuries aren’t just caused by sudden dramatic accidents, they can be caused by something as innocuous as a slip, trip or fall perhaps in an area that has previously been reported as dangerous but not rectified, or the result of poor practice gone uncorrected.

Common causes of injury in a workplace include:

• lifting, pulling, pushing heavy objects therefore exerting too much force on your back
• being stationary for too long, routine office work involving sat in a chair for many hours especially if you have poor posture or have a chair with inadequate back support or driving for long periods without breaks and over uneven road surfaces
• repeating certain movements especially those that involve twisting or rotating your spine
• height – ladders, platforms, scaffolding inadequately built, monitored or supported

The causes above may happen in isolation as we’ve said in the case of a sudden fall but a number of causes together could take its toll and contribute to back pain and injury.

Employers must take steps to reduce the risk of back injury and therefore the consequent loss of days at work by providing suitable training, equipment, support and minimising the time spent working on lifting, prolonged driving periods and sitting. For example, if your job involves a lot of heavy lifting you should have been trained on how to do this safely. Risk assessments should always be carried out as part of their duty of care in order to identify potential causes of back injury within the workplace and reports of potential risk should always be followed up. Failure to do this can render them liable to compensate injuries caused.

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