What Is The Most Common Cause of Workplace Injury?

Overexertion related injuries account for millions of emergency room visits each year, and is the most common cause of workplace accidents.

But, can they be preventable?

By knowing the common signs of overexertion, employer’s can help reduce workplace injury associated with dehydration, fatigue and low blood sugar – the common culprits of overexertion related injury!

What Is Overexertion?

Physical overexertion is caused by repetitive motion such as lifting heavy objects, working in a awkward position or typing. The following repetitive movements can occur when the employee fails to take rest breaks and pushes their body past its limits to the point of injury:

• Bending
• Pushing
• Sitting
• Climbing
• Twisting
• Crawling
• Reaching
• Placing, or moving objects.

A common cause of worker’s compensation claims, overexertion remains to be the leading cause of workplace injury! It can cause:

• Muscle sprains and strains
• Heat exhaustion
• Back injury
• Neck injury, and;
• Connective tissue, joint and tendon injuries.

How Can I Help My Employee’s Prevent an Overexertion Related Injury?

There are three main culprits to overexertion in the workplace: dehydration, fatigue and low blood sugar. Fortunately, there are actionable steps you can take to improve the potential accident outcome! Education and information starts at the top – with you.  With early and often intervention, you can build a culture of safety, health and physical and emotional fitness.

1. Beat Fatigue. Pushing your body too hard without sufficient sleep can cause injury. Sleep is essential for a safe and healthy workforce. Preventative care can begin by recognizing the common signs of fatigue – allowing you to address them before an injury takes place:

• Depression
• Increased blood pressure
• Dizziness
• Irregular breathing
• Irrationality
• Irritability
• Decreased cognitive function.

A quick solution to a significant problem?

Teach safety training focused around sleep because with the right education in place, employees can make the right decisions.

Those decisions directly affect you, and your business!

Here, we address fatigue on a deeper level – learn a more comprehensive plan to beat the risks at work!

2. The Hypoglycemia Risk. Are your employees so busy they don’t have time to stop and eat?

Not eating can cause low blood sugar – otherwise known as hypoglycemia.

In the workplace, hypoglycemia can be very dangerous, causing confusion, nervousness and fatigue.

However – it’s easily treatable by encouraging your employees to take breaks every 3-4 hours in order to eat regularly.

3. Got the Dehydration Blues? Dehydration, which occurs when your body loses more water than it takes, can occur quickly.

Common symptoms include: dry mouth, cracked lips, dry eyes and dark colored urine. In more severe cases, it can cause coma, kidney damage and even death.

Advocate short breaks for your employees so they can stay hydrated.

Teach proper hydration techniques during tool talks, and why they should avoid sugary sports and energy drinks. Offer hydration ‘hacks’ such as keeping cloths nearby they can dampen and reduce sweating with.

The Axiom Advantage

Overexertion is the leading cause of injury, no matter the industry — and no matter how safe your employees are when working.

At Axiom, we offer a simpler solution to employee health.

While you can’t stop employee injury altogether, you can optimize injury outcome with a incident case management program in place.

At Axiom Medical, we offer a team of in-house registered nurses – available 24/7! – who are licensed in all 50 states to assess your injury within minutes after it occurs. In over 60 percent of the cases called in, our nurses can treat the injury at a first-aid level.

How does our process work, and what impact does it make?

Contact us to find out at +1 (877) 502-9466!