Muscle and Joint Health: Onsite Clinic Tips for Construction Workers
Construction is an inherently risky profession, with heavy lifting, complex machinery and high scaffolding posing the potential for injuries. But it isn’t just the obvious hazards that construction workers must look out for — long days of physical work present higher-than-normal potential for musculoskeletal disorders that can be debilitating.
A study conducted in Kansas from 2014 to 2022 found that the average cost of work-related musculoskeletal disorder claims was $20,097. Of that total, medical made up 48.4% of costs, indemnity 46.4% and legal 5.2%.
To combat these injuries, ensuring your construction workers are prioritizing their muscle and joint health is essential. If your workers aren’t physically healthy, they are more at risk for musculoskeletal injuries that can cost your firm tens of thousands of dollars and days of lost time.
With some adjustments to your onsite construction medical program, you can help your workers support their muscle and joint health, preventing injuries and keeping workers on the job.
Understanding the Importance of Muscle and Joint Health for Construction Workers
Construction is a physically demanding industry, with workers at higher risk of accidental injuries. But construction workers also face higher rates of repetitive stress injuries from months and years of performing similar movements daily. Regularly lifting heavy objects, performing overhead work, frequent exposure to full-body vibration, chronic flexion of the neck and repetitive performing of labor-intensive work are all conditions under which construction workers operate that can be taxing on the musculoskeletal system.
Additionally, construction workers (and all workers across industries) plan to work past age 70. With the average age of construction workers in the United States at 42 in 2021, that’s a lot of years of repetitive use that could contribute to musculoskeletal disorders that become workers’ compensation claims.
Common Muscle and Joint Issues for Construction Workers
While there are more than 150 specific conditions that are classified as musculoskeletal disorders, construction workers are more likely to develop certain conditions, including:
- Osteoarthritis
- Rheumatoid arthritis
- Fractures
- Sarcopenia
- Back and neck pain
- Carpal tunnel
- Cubital tunnel
- Sprains, strains and tears
- Hernia
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that musculoskeletal disorders are associated with high employer costs, including costs related to absenteeism, lost productivity, and increased costs for healthcare, disability and workers’ compensation.
Benefits of an Onsite Clinic for Construction Workers
Using your onsite construction clinic to provide workers with resources for promoting muscle and joint health not only benefits your workers, but also your business.
Immediate Access to Healthcare
Acute musculoskeletal injuries such as sprains and strain benefit from quick evaluation and treatment. The longer a worker waits to receive care for their condition, the more time they are likely to need for recovery.
With an onsite clinic, your workers can be evaluated quickly if they are injured, and they even can see a medical professional if they’ve just got a nagging pain. Clinic staff either can treat their condition at the onsite clinic or, if necessary, navigate them to the appropriate type of offsite care.
Preventative Care and Education
Many musculoskeletal disorders are the result of months or years of repeated use and may be from misuse or incorrect positioning. Having an onsite clinic with trained occupational health providers allows workers to be seen for those minor aches and pains before they turn into full-blown injuries.
Clinic staff can observe workers in their duties, identifying movement patterns, workstation setup and more that could contribute to repetitive use injuries. These conditions can be corrected, preventing the worker from further injuring themselves.
Customized Treatment Plans
Some treatment plans for injuries don’t consider a worker’s day-to-day work experiences. Because many traditional healthcare providers don’t have a background in occupational healthcare, let alone knowledge of the conditions of a typical construction site, the treatment plans they provide are less likely address movements or tasks that an injured worker spends multiple hours per day completing. This can slow down a worker’s recovery, or even lead to further injury.
With an onsite clinic, workers get individualized treatment plans that are tailored to the unique needs of construction workers. Clinic personnel know the worksite and the tasks each worker is expected to complete and can adjust their treatment plans to accommodate specific needs. Workers are less likely to experience setbacks in their recovery, getting them back to their full potential more quickly.
Essential Ways Onsite Clinics Support Muscle and Joint Health
Beyond injury response and treatment, your onsite clinic can help support muscle and joint health on a daily basis in a variety of ways.
Implement Ergonomic Solutions
Not working in an ergonomically friendly manner is a major contributor to chronic musculoskeletal disorders. Years of misusing a piece of equipment or bending and twisting in the wrong way breaks down muscles and joints, leaving workers vulnerable to injury.
Having occupational health professionals onsite allows for them to observe workers in their day-to-day duties. They can see whether your workers are putting themselves at risk for unnecessary injuries and work to find solutions to ergonomic issues before they become problems.
These solutions could include adjusting a worker’s hand position on a piece of equipment to reduce the impact of full-body vibration, relocating an implement to reduce the need for twisting or holding additional training sessions to remind workers of proper form when using specific equipment.
Regular Exercise and Stretching Programs
One of the best ways to prevent musculoskeletal disorders is regular physical activity. While construction workers are physically active, they may not regularly exercise in a way that strengthens and stretches their muscles, helping them withstand injury.
An onsite clinic can host regular stretching programs during the workday, encouraging workers to participate. They can encourage physical activity with movement challenges, fostering a healthy sense of competition and camaraderie amongst your team while getting more people physically active. These efforts help your workers take care of their physical health so they are less likely to get injured, and so they’re better able to recover if they do have an accident.
Nutrition and Hydration Guidance
Maintaining proper nutrition and hydration can be difficult for construction workers. They work long hours, sometimes far away from healthy food resources, and they spend hours outside in all kinds of weather. When workers aren’t eating well or drinking enough water, they run the risk of becoming ill or injured. Additionally, their bodies won’t have the proper fuel to maintain general muscle and joint health, putting them at further risk of injury.
Having an onsite clinic allows your workers proximity to professionals who can help monitor them for signs of poor nutrition and dehydration. Clinic staff can act quickly if a worker appears to be in imminent danger, or they can encourage long-term healthy eating and drinking habits for overall health and wellness.
Your Partner for Onsite Clinics for Construction
At Medcor, we have years of experience providing onsite clinics to construction sites across North America. Our skilled professionals help firms just like yours prevent injuries, manage accidents when they happen and navigate workers to the appropriate level of care for their needs, reducing unnecessary offsite medical care and costs. See what an onsite construction clinic can do for you. Speak with an advocate today.