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Archive for category: Workplace Wednesdays

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What Is Sitting Disease?

The negative health effects of sitting for extended periods of time, coined as “sitting disease” has been a hot topic recently. Studies show that sitting for extended periods of time, as many of us do at work, while commuting, and even while watching television or reading, can lead to increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and a decreased lifespan. But while we need to work, commute, and enjoy our down time, how do we combat these negative effects? Here are our top 5 tips to conquer sitting disease:

1. Take Regular Breaks: Taking a regular break can help boost productivity, reduce stress and benefit your physical health. Once an hour make sure you stand up, walk around the office, stretch or do some simple exercises like squats or lunges.

2. Stand While You Work: Standing workstations are becoming an increasingly popular choice in offices across the globe. These workstations allow you to adjust your desk from sitting to standing so you can have both options during the day.

3. Switch Your Seat: If you must sit while working, think about changing your seating options! From exercise ball chairs to desks with pedals, there are many options to help you increase your health while sitting.

4. Perfect Your Posture: While you are seated ensure you are not slouching, leaning or bending over to access your workspace. Sitting up straight and ensuring proper posture will go a long way for your physical health!

5. Make it a Mobile Meeting: If you’re meeting with a colleague see if you can have your meeting on the go. Take a walk around the block while you discuss or walk to your favourite coffee shop where you can continue your discussions there.

Check out the web’s premier sitting disease prevention guide brought to you by Beyond the Office Door for more information and resources on the prevention of sitting disease.

Beyond The Office Door:  The Web’s Premier Sitting Disease Prevention Guide

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Back to Routine, Back to Ergonomics

With the change in routine through the summer months, it is time to rethink about how we are sitting and working all day to make sure our body can adjust to the new routines that are devoid of summer vacation and summer activities.

In our previous posts, we have discussed using proper ergonomics to help support your back, neck and shoulders.  Today, we look at how to reduce wrist pain and related injuries.

Wrist injuries and corresponding pain are common work-related musculoskeletal disorders that can have detrimental consequences. Repetitive hand movements completed on the job is often a key culprit, however, improper positioning of the wrists, forearm and shoulder can also be a factor. Keyboarding, use of a mouse and extended periods of sitting at a computer in one position can lead to symptoms like wrist and forearm pain, weakness, numbness or tingling in the fingers and in some cases, development of cysts or nodules around the wrist joint and tendons.

Injuries to the wrist are particularly troublesome as we heavily require use of our hands throughout the work day. Barr, Barbe and Clark (2004) reported that work-related musculoskeletal disorders of the wrist and hand cause the longest absences from work and as such, are associated with greater losses in productivity and wages than injuries in other body areas. This research was also supported by a more recent study, which found that lost productivity costs related to hand and wrist injuries was roughly $411 million dollars per year and this was the highest among any other injury type studied (de Putter, Selles, Polinder et al., 2012). There are some strategies that can be used to prevent and address wrist pain, but it is essential to keep in mind that as with any other potential for injury at work, the worker, work station and job demands must all be considered.  Some great strategies to address wrist pain at work include:

  • Take regular breaks to stretch and allow your wrists to rest. If needed, use a timer on your computer to tell you when it is time to take a break. There are several free timers you can download and use such as Focus Booster (available for download at https://www.focusboosterapp.com/download) or Orzeszek Timer (available for download at http://www.orzeszek.org/dev/timer/)
  • Alter your job demands between typing, using the phone, filing or other duties that reduce strain on the wrist.
  • Ensure you are positioned so that your wrists remain in a neutral position during typing. This may require adjusting your keyboard, mouse or chair.

Many other great solutions to address wrist pain at work can be recommended by an Occupational Therapist, with solutions ranging from low to high cost. For more information, check out Entwistle Power’s FREE Office Ergonomic E-Book or contact an Occupational Therapist to help meet the ergonomic needs of your organization.

 

Resources

Barr, A., Barbe, M. & Clark, B. (2004). Work-related musculoskeletal disorders of the hand and wrist: epidemiology, pathophysiology and sensorimotor changes. J Orthop Sports Phys Ther. Oct 2004, 34 (10), 610-627.

de Putter, C., Selles, R., Polinder, S., Panneman, M., Hovius, S. & van Beeck, E. (2012). Economic impact of hand and wrist injuries: health-care costs and productivity costs in a population-based study. J Bone Joint Surg Am. 2012, 94:e56 (1-7).

http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/ergonomics/office/mouse/mouse_problems.html

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Back to Routine, Back to Ergonomics

With the change in routine through the summer months, it is time to rethink about how we are sitting and working all day to make sure our body can adjust to the new routines that are devoid of summer vacation and summer activities.

In our previous posts, we have discussed using proper ergonomics to help support your back and neck.  Today, we look at how to reduce shoulder pain and related injuries.

Sloppy shoulders – are you guilty? Take a second to freeze at your desk and notice how your body is positioned. If you are like most people, your shoulders are slumped or rounded and you are bending over your desk. Many people’s work stations consist of their computer or laptop, keyboards, phone and mobile devices, requiring them to switch back and forth between devices while still spending extended periods of time in a seated, slumped position.

Being in this position for an extended period causes strain to the upper body, particularly the shoulders and upper back. At first, you may feel achy or tired in these areas, but this goes away at night or during days off work so it doesn’t impact your work performance. However, over time you may start to notice that your aches and pains begin earlier in the day, your muscles feel tight, and this starts to hamper you even when you aren’t at work. This impacts your productivity, quality of life and can lead to more serious and long-lasting injuries.

Here are some great tips to help address these issues before they start to impact your daily function, or if they do exist, to stop them from worsening:

• Lower your keyboard so your shoulders are not elevated when typing.

• Adjust your posture so you are sitting up straight in your chair, with your shoulders pulled away from your ears and your feet are flat on the floor with your knees directly over them.

• Alter your position so that you are not reaching forward to your keyboard or mouse.

• Adjust your chair so that your arms reach your desk at a 90 degree angle.

• Take regular breaks to stretch or stand up to relieve tension in your upper body.

• Stick out your chest to bring your shoulders back and down. Do this several times per day and hold this position.

Want more strategies to address pain at work? Check out our free e-book “Cost Effective Ergonomic Solutions” to learn additional strategies for addressing shoulder and upper back pain, among others, while you are sitting at your desk.

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Back to Routine, Back to Ergonomics

With the change in routine through the summer months, it is time to rethink about how we are sitting and working all day to make sure our body can adjust to the new routines that are devoid of summer vacation and summer activities.

In our previous post, we discussed using proper ergonomics to help support your back.  Today, we look at how to reduce neck pain and injuries.

Text Neck—are you guilty? A recent article in the two way by Laura Sullivan discusses the posture adopted by many people when leaning over a cellphone while reading and texting. This bad posture can put up to 60 pounds of pressure on the upper spine — sometimes for several hours a day, depending on how often people look at their devices.

And it isn’t just texting. Believe it or not, holding the upper body still and sitting in an upright position, as is required when spending time sitting at a desk for long times such as working at a computer, requires a lot of effort from our muscular systems. There is an invisible but constant battle against gravity to maintain the head in an upright position, at the optimum distance from the screen, combined with maintaining one’s arms in the proper typing position increases the static load on our body, especially the neck and shoulders.

The Institute of Work and Health reported that neck pain related to work is one of the most common complaints of working aged adults and in 2006 it was reported that injuries to the upper extremity account for 30% of lost-time claims in Ontario.

There are often some commonly occurring culprits in the office that lead to poor postures and over time, fatigued bodies and resulting neck pain. Some of these culprits include:

• Non-adjustable workstations

• Workstations that are not properly designed or not well suited to the individual

• Lack of knowledge and experience on how to set up and adjustable workstation properly according to the worker’s needs (being sure to consider the worker’s body and their job tasks)

• Unsuitable job design that requires workers to sit uninterrupted for longer than an hour at a time

The good news is that many of these issues can be addressed through prevention. Some great tips for adjusting work stations to prevent neck pain include:

• Making sure that your monitor is directly in front of you and does not require you to look to the side

• If your monitor is too low, raise it with a book or another solid object

• Use split screen to read two documents at once while reducing neck rotation

For more great suggestions on how you can address neck pain in the workplace, download our E-Book:  “Cost Effective Ergonomic Solutions” and check out past posts on Wellness in the Workplace.

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Back to Routine, Back to Ergonomics

With the change in routine through the summer months, it is time to rethink about how we are sitting and working all day to make sure our body can adjust to the new routines that are devoid of summer vacation and summer activities.

Today we focus on proper ergonomics to support your back.

In 2010, back pain was found to be the single leading cause of disability world-wide according to the Global Burden of Disease.   It has been estimated that 186 million work days are lost each year to back pain alone which greatly impacts workplace productivity and costs. The Mayo Clinic has found that a number of factors can contribute to back pain and back injuries at work. The four most common factors include:

1.       Force:  Job demands that require lifting or moving heavy objects exerts force on our back which can lead to injury.

2.       Repetition:  Repetitive movements leads to muscle fatigue and in turn can lead to injury, particularly if these movements involve stretching our back near the limits of our range of motion or using awkward body positions.

3.       Posture:  Posture is a critical component in preventing fatigue and injury. Slouching or sitting in awkward positions alters the natural curves in our back, increasing fatigue and can lead to pain and injury.

4.       Stress:  While we often think of the negative impacts stress can have on our mental well-being, it also impacts our physical well-being. High levels of pressure at work or increased stress leads to muscle tension and tightness, which can contribute to or worsen back pain.

If back pain is something you or someone in your workplace experience, there are some strategies you can use to help minimize existing problems and even prevent issues before they arise:

·         Ensure that your feet are flat on the floor, as this helps stabilize our pelvis and lower back

·         If you have an adjustable chair, alter the settings so that your lower back has increased support

·         Get a colleague to take a photo of you sitting at your desk or workstation and examine your posture. Can this be adjusted?

·         Take regular breaks to stretch, stand up and walk around the office to complete other tasks

For more information, take a look at our FREE downloadable resource on office ergonomics and stay tuned for more Workplace Wednesday blog postings highlighting stretches and exercises to help address common work-related concerns such as back pain.

Resources

http://www.inthefaceofpain.com/content/uploads/2011/09/factsheet_Workplace.pdf

http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/ergonomics/inj_prev.html

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The State of Mental Health at Work

21% of working Canadians report they currently struggle with mental health illness and issues.  This is a problem that is affecting the economy, individual businesses, and more importantly, the health of our Canadian population.

Check out the following infographic created by the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety which delves deeper into the issues and suggests ways both employers and employees can work to to reduce stress and improve this growing problem.

mentalHealth

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OT Helps Employees Return To Work

In 2011, Statistics Canada reported that 5.9% of full-time employees were absent from work due to illness or disability. The costs associated with workplace injuries are vast.  Studies have shown that the duration of work disability, as well as costs, are significantly reduced when the workplace has contact with a health care provider coordinating return to work interventions. In fact, well-designed return to work programs are now recognized as the best practice to reduce costs associated with worker’s compensation.

In the following video from our OT-V series we will discuss how occupational therapists can help to support the critical transition back to the workplace following an interruption of work duties due to physical or mental health issues.

Occupational therapy is a cost-effective strategy to accelerate the client’s recovery and rate of returning to work. With an effective return to work plan coordinated by an occupational therapist, injured or ill employees can recover quicker and return to work faster, significantly reducing employer costs associated with workplace injuries.

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Improve Nutrition As A Team

Julie Entwistle, MBA, BHSc (OT), BSc (Health / Gerontology)

It is no secret that obesity is on the rise across North America.  In fact, a 2014 study shows that obesity now accounts for 8.6% of youth and 25% of the adult population.  (Després, Alméras, & Gauvin, 2014)   The leading causes of this “obesity epidemic” are sedentary lifestyles, lack of physical activity and poor nutritional choices.

With the stressful lives being led by our generation, taking time to prepare and bring healthy lunches and snacks to work is difficult.  Yet, without a healthy snack or lunch, the tendency is to purchase food that is not healthy, or to under-eat which, believe it or not, can also cause obesity as our body works to “hold onto” every calorie in fear of starvation.

Employers may ask “why do I care if my team is eating unhealthy”, but the answer is obvious:  a healthy workforce is a productive workforce and workplace absences for health-related problems (including obesity, heart disease, diabetes etc) are hugely disruptive.

Here are a few suggestions that can be implemented at the workplace to help improve the health of your staff and organization:

1.       Schedule Regular Healthy Pot-Luck Lunches — choose a day of the week and have each person bring in a healthy lunch item for a team-building activity.

2.       Bring A Colleague A Lunch — people are more likely to prepare healthy meals for others than for themselves, so capitalize on this and arrange for “bring a colleague a lunch week” and see the efforts people will go to in order to promote the health of a colleague.

3.       Recipe Of The Week — each week choose a member of the team to share make their favourite healthy meal or snack and bring it in to share with the team.  Have them send each member a recipe via email for them to make on their own.

4.       Education Opportunities — bring in a nutritionist, dietician or health coach to speak to the team about how to create healthy meals and snacks to help fuel their day at work.

5.       Brown Bag Week — encourage the team to have a “brown bag” week.  Eating out can lead to unhealthy choices and lack of portion control.  Bringing your own lunch can help to ensure you are getting the nutrients you need and fueling productivity the entire day.

6.       Russian Lunch Roulette — like secret Santa, have everyone bring a balanced lunch and randomly select who gets what lunch.  It always tastes better to consume something made by someone else, so people should enjoy the surprise lunch they end up with.  Of course, plan ahead for any allergies / food requests and ask people to put sauces / condiments on the side to be added only if desired.

In the end, lead by example.  Employers have the ability to create opportunities that can help their workforce to engage in healthy habits.  Use the strength of your organizational alliance to bring people together to help them achieve healthy goals.  Everyone will benefit, including the organization.

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Increasing Physical Activity At Work

Julie Entwistle, MBA, BHSc (OT), BSc (Health / Gerontology)

While anti-smoking campaigns have been in effect for decades, more recent health promotion efforts are being directed at preventing obesity, heart disease and the detrimental effects of prolonged sitting, now called “sitting disease”.  As society experiences this paradigm shift away from sedentary activity, employers too need to be on board with solutions on ways to keep employees active when the job demands require continuous desk work.

If you are concerned about the effects of sitting disease and are looking for ways to increase health and wellness at work, the solution is actually simple.  Just start by getting moving!  If you are an employer and are not ready or able to invest in a comprehensive wellness program, or you are an employee and these are not offered where you work, start with some simple team-building challenges.  Consider the following:

1.       Stair climbing.   Try to challenge workplace to at 30 day “Climb It Challenge” where everyone takes the stairs.  Or if your office is too high up, no problem, take the elevator 5 floors below your level and walk the stairs from there.

2.       30 day squat challenge.  This is easy, requires no equipment and won’t leave your office team with the need to shower following.  Have those interested meet for 5-10 minutes a day and complete each day’s challenge.  This 30 day squat challenge has a daily plan you can follow.

3.       Bike or walk to work month.  This is easier to do in the warmer weather months, so try to challenge your team to walk or bike to work each day.  If you are in a remote location, or if employees commute, ask employees to park a couple of blocks away and walk or ride from there.

4.       Get your yoga on.  Each day with your team, take 10-15 minutes to run through some easy yoga poses to help boost posture and strength. Check out some of these beginner poses to try.

5.       Organize a walking lunch group.  Each day with your team take a 30 minute power walk at lunch or break time.  Walking is great for cardiovascular and bone health and will help to prevent the negative effects of sitting all day.

Working together with a team dedicated to improving health and wellness will help to keep individuals motivated and on track.  In the end, don’t forget to celebrate your success and keep the momentum going!

Check out more on staying healthy at the office on our Healthy Workplace page.

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Reducing Injury and Illness In The Workplace

Having employees off from work due to injury and illness is costly to your organization and detrimental to the overall wellbeing of your team.  Stress, high demands, dangerous work environments and poor ergonomics in the workplace can lead to illness and injury.  Do employers realize that THEY (and their workplace environment) may be the leading cause of these leaves?  And more importantly that THEY are the ones who can work to prevent future illness or injury.

The following article discusses two of the main reasons an employee may be on long term disability leave, how the workplace environment may be the cause, and how occupational therapy can assist in the prevention of workplace injury and illness.

Roger Foisy:  How Employers Can Become a Cause of Long Term Disability Claims