Manual Handling Injuries are those injuries that occur during or as the result of using the human body to lift, push, pull, carry, hold, restrain or otherwise manipulate an object using the body to generate force. Manual Handling Injuries alongside falls, trips, and slips and impact injuries typically account for more than eighty percent of all serious work health and safety related claims each calendar year. This is understandable given the fact that it is impossible for a person to work in some way without using their body, where over 50% of all serious claim injuries arose from Traumatic joint/ ligament and muscle/ tendon injury, Wounds, lacerations, amputations and internal organ damage, fractures, and other injuries, and body stressing is the mechanism by which 34.5% serious claims arose.
Using the body to manipulate objects exposes body segments to load. This is exactly the same as the dose of resistance applied to a segment, limb, or joint during resistance exercise. When the exposure of a body segment to load occurs repeatedly over time in the case of small doses, or intensely over a short time in the case of a large dose of load, the body is placed under stress. Over a long period or short period, this stress can exceed the body's ability to recover over the long period or overload its ability to perform in the short term. Where physical capacities are exceeded to the extent to cause discomfort, irritation and then injuries arise.
Managing manual handling risks involves examining the worker's capacity, the nature of the work, the nature of the load, and the interactions between all of these factors. Workers are, largely, human and so have human capacities which vary with human diversity. Workers present with diversities of age, body composition, fitness, gender, and familiarity with the task they are doing. Where there are deficits, they can be corrected through appropriate information, training, instruction, and support. The nature of the work should be considered to determine the extent to which workers may or must be reasonably exposed to manual handling. Where tasks can be mechanised or automated to remove the worker from the sustem, then this is the most effective means of eliminating the risk. However, this is not always practicable, so the nature of the work and of the load should be considered as well.
Load management is necessary when considering risk controls in the context of manual handling. Loads are those physical things which must be handled as part of job tasks. They can be as small as cans of soft drink or as large as bags of soil or sand. They can have consistent dimensions and distributions of weight or different forms and densities that makes managing their balance and handling difficult. They can be dynamic like half-empty buckets or be static like bricks. Consideration of load characteristics as well as how those characteristics may change over the carry path is necessary when considering load safety. A simple example is that a worker may find it difficult to lift 24-packs of glass beer bottles in one go, but if that worker were to lift four six-packs, then they would be repeating the same movement four times, which may increase their exposure to awkward postures, fatigue, or repetition.
Each workplace is different, with different demands, methods of business, and is staffed by people whose capacities, needs, and risk profiles are different. Managing ergonomic, environmental, and occupational health and safety challenges requires a business to examine and engage with the ecosystem of factors that give rise to risk, and how that risk may affect people. Each workplace is different and so sometimes the same problem will require different solutions. This applies to workers as well - every person is different and so may require different support, supervision, or resources to perform comfortably and sustainably. Under Work Health and Safety law, consultation with the workforce, the control of risk as far as is reasonably practicable, and the provision of information, training, instruction and support to the worker by the workplace, is essential to meet obligations to provide workers with a workplace that is as free of risk as far is reasonably practicable.
In our capacity as consultants, Atlas Physio will explore and scope the business and its needs, examining how exposures, risks, and processes contribute to the hazard ecosystem, best inform the design and arrangement of procedural, policy-based, and practical risk controls. Our solutions are tailored to the needs of those with whom we work, implemented in a simple, sustainable, and supportive fashion, designed to be robust and resilient, and to support the ongoing life of the business as well as the sustainable wellbeing of the workers who undertake the day to day activities of work.
At Atlas Physio, we provide reporting, structured control, and ongoing management of risk onsite, on the road, and wherever work is done. We are open seven days a week, and are happy to offer a brief complimentary discussion to explore the needs of your business and your workers if you are an employer, and your needs if you are a worker. Reach out today to arrange a discussion and take the first step toward managing risk and working safely, supported by expertise that is practical, reliable, and designed to deliver lasting results.