FACTS

1. Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) affect the muscles, nerves, blood vessels, ligaments and tendons.
2. Ergonomics — fitting a job to a person — helps lessen muscle fatigue, increases productivity and reduces the number and severity of work-related MSDs.
3. The severity of ergonomic hazards often depends on the level of exposure over time.
4. Ergonomic hazards are often a result of the way a space is designed.
5. An ergonomic hazard is a factor in a work, or other environment that could cause damage to the human musculoskeletal system. These hazards include repetitive strain injury, discomfort in an office chair or desk, poor design of a particular job or task at a workplace that causes injury, manual handling of heavy loads, and anything in the environment that leads to uncomfortable or unnatural body positioning that can lead to injury.
6. Research shows injuries are down and productivity is increased when employers encourage stretch breaks and stress the importance of ergonomics.
7. Hundreds of thousands of workers sit at a computer or desk all day long. But experts say it doesn’t matter where the sitting takes place – at the office, at school, or in the car; in front of a computer or in front of a television screen – it’s the overall number of hours spent sitting that matters most.

STATS

• Stretching is beneficial to the overall health of the body and plays a role in reducing musculoskeletal disorders among employees. MSD’s account for more than 600,000 injuries and illnesses and 34 % of all workdays lost.
• Inactivity or being sedentary increases the pressure on spinal discs by about 40 % more than standing.
• Each year for the past five years, between 17,000 and 18,000 injures at work via a sprain, strain or back injury.
• The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) USA has predicted that 50% of the work force will suffer from RSIs (of all kinds).
• Around 1.1 million people suffered from MSDs caused or made worse by work.
• An estimated 12.3 million working days were lost due to work-related MSDs and on average each sufferer took 19.4 days off. These figures include upper limb disorders from which approximately 400,000 people suffered, resulting in a loss of around four million working days in the same period.