Acute Low Back Injuries and Modifiable Job Activities: You Can Do Something

Medical News Today reports on a significant new study (fee or subscription required) of what causes episodes of acute low back pain.  Critically, the study’s authors concluded that most physical and psychosocial triggers of acute low back pain can be modified.  Per Medical News Today, some of the findings include:

• [C]arrying out manual tasks involving awkward postures increases the risk of triggering acute low back pain by eight times;
• [F]atigue and being distracted can also significantly increase the risk of acute low back pain;
• [T]he odds of a new back pain episode was nearly 3 times higher chance following moderate to vigorous physical activity; and
• [T]he odds of a new back pain episode was to a 25 times higher chance after being distracted during an activity.

Unusually, the study “also found that age was a factor in triggering back pain when lifting heavy loads - with younger people being significantly more likely to suffer an episode of acute low back pain after such activity than older people.”  This certainly will be counterintuitive for claims administrators and attorneys in the worker’s compensation field as conventional wisdom suggests older age is directly proportional to low back injuries rather than the inverse as was found in the study.  Regardless, the most important thing is to utilize knowledge from the study to reduce episodes of acute low back pain in the workplace.  Manuela Ferreira, lead author stated the matter succinctly:

Our findings enhance knowledge of low back pain triggers and will assist the development of new prevention programs that can reduce suffering from this potentially disabling condition.

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