Study: Employer Advice and Devices Don’t Prevent Worker Back Pain

Here is a link to an article in the periodical, Occupational Hazards. It summarizes a study that looked at 18,000 employees from 11 different studies.

Click here for the article

The following is from the last section of the article and is right in line with the Function First Approach:

“This study confirms that much of what is happening at the workplace is well-intentioned but probably pointless,” said Christopher Maher, associate professor of physiotherapy at the University of Sydney in Australia, who was not involved with the study.

According to Maher, regulatory agencies as well as employers make the mistake of concentrating on equipment and policies that don’t work such as back belts, lifting devices and workplace re-design and fail to focus on the “only known effective intervention,” which is exercise.

“We also know that exercise has health benefits beyond prevention of back pain, so you are getting two health benefits (or more) for the price of one,” Maher added.

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