Back injuries serve as one of the most common reasons for people to miss work across the entire globe. However, some of these injuries can have a more serious impact than you may think.
Some back injuries can actually end careers, or even put a person out of work for the rest of their life.
No shortcuts for recovery
Cleveland Clinic looks at back injuries and their impact on a person’s health. Generally speaking, back injuries have a big impact on people due to the simple fact that a person needs their back to perform virtually any action. Whether it is sitting, lying down, standing or anything in between, at least some part of the back ends up engaged in the motion.
Back injuries can cause a major problem for multiple reasons. The first is the fact that there is no way to shortcut healing for a back injury. It takes time and rest, and the rest is most important during the period in which the injury swells.
A vicious cycle of injury
If a person tries to shortcut this and goes back to work before the inflammation and swelling die down, they could easily end up re-injuring their back or making the initial injury even worse. This leads to a cycle in which they have to take more and more time away from their job.
Some injuries take weeks or even months to heal. However, very severe back injuries – such as those involving the spine rather than the muscles – can take years to properly heal. In some cases, the victim never regains full use of their back again. This can easily make them incompatible for their current job, or any job that requires certain ranges of motion, thus ending their career.
