Musculoskeletal Injuries: A Case Study

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Workplace injury is a prevalent issue in nurses. Nurses have one of the highest rates of back and other musculoskeletal injury (MSD) among all occupations (Trinkoff et al., 2003). Musculoskeletal injuries also called "ergonomic” are common among workers in all healthcare settings (Stokowski, 2014). Patient care involves transferring patients from bed to chair or commode, and repositioning patients are blamed for most of the sprains and strains to the neck, shoulders, and lower back experienced by nurses. However, the manual load involved in lifting and transferring patients is not the only source of muscle strain. Tasks that involve bending over the patient, such as bathing, performing procedures, or pushing wheelchairs and gurneys, also contribute to cumulative injury. Static load, caused by working or standing for long hours can strain the muscles as well (Stokowski, 2014). Nurses and related medical workers lead all other occupations for risk of herniated lumbar intervertebral discs requiring hospitalization (Stokowsi, 2014). The median lost workdays for registered nurses with MSD was 5 days per episode (Trinkoff et al., 2003). According to a study by Canadian Policy Research Networks in…show more content…
This is attributed to changes in health-care delivery that have contributed to increased risk of injury, such as complexity of

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