5 Ways To Reduce Workplace Injuries

Three of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money, Business/Entrepreneurship and Health/Wellness. Depending on which industry you’re in, there can be a lot of potential for workplace injuries. Figuring out how to reduce workplace injuries, can ultimately save you money and increase the morale of your workforce. The following contributed post is entitled, 5 Ways To Reduce Workplace Injuries.

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Pixabay – CCO Licensed

It’s essential that your workplace is a safe environment for employees. Accidents will happen in almost all trades – even if there aren’t any obvious hazards – but you should still try to minimise the risk, if not to protect your employees, to at least protect your company from the threat of a lawsuit. Here are just a few ways in which you can reduce workplace injuries and keep it a safe environment.

Point out hazards with signage

The easiest way to prevent injury is to clearly point out hazards with signage. Such hazards could include anything from a hot water tap to a low ceiling. In the case of multiple hazards, don’t be afraid to provide a large informational sign or even a manual to make guides aware of multiple hazards. It could also be important to provide temporary signage such as wet floor signs when mopping.

Supply safety equipment

Safety equipment such as these men’s work boots could also be necessary for reducing injuries. By making it mandatory to wear such equipment, you can ensure that employees are physically guarded against dangers. There could also be tools such as step ladders and fire extinguishers to consider.

Introduce health and safety protocols

Health and safety protocols require employees to carry out tasks in a specific way. This could be something as simple as how to safely carry a box to something complex such as how to put out a kitchen fire. Try to introduce a series of steps that employees have to follow and make sure that employees carry out the task in this exact order so that no step is missed out.

Train your employees thoroughly

There’s no point having protocols in place if you’re not going to train your employees how to perform these protocols. Make this a vital part of your training whenever you hire a new employee. Refresher training could also be worth undertaking with older employees to ensure that they’re still doing everything correctly and not cutting corners. Certain aspects of health and safety such as fire safety or using heavy machinery may even require enrolling employees on a course.

Supervise hazardous tasks

If you have the manpower, it could be worth having employees supervise one another when carrying out particularly hazardous tasks. For instance, you may not need someone to supervise when lifting a box, however if an employee is climbing a tall ladder, supervision could be essential in order to keep the ladder steady.

Five No-nonsense Habits to Prevent Football Injuries

The first principle of my blog is Creating Ecosystems of Success and a key focus is Athletics/Sports. While “American Football” is king in the United States, the top sport in the rest of the world is “Football” also known as “Soccer”. Soccer requires a high level of fitness for the massive amounts of running needed to play the sport. As such, it’s important to know how to prevent common injuries. The following contributed post is entitled, Five No-nonsense Habits to Prevent Football Injuries.

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From pulled hamstrings to twisted ankles, sports injuries are a fact of life if you play football. Or are they? These tips will help you avoid minor niggles that take you out of the game for weeks at a time, as well as the more serious injuries that can put you on the bench for life.

Photo by Ben Weber on Unsplash

Get Checked Over By a Pro

If there’s an imbalance in your body—perhaps one of your hammies is tighter than the other, or you have more strength in one of your quads—you might be the last to know. We get so used to how it feels to be us that it can be difficult to identify imbalances in your own physique. A physiotherapy session at the start of the season is a great way to anticipate injuries you may be at risk of. Your physio will give you a program of exercises and practices designed to help you take steps to prevent what needn’t be inevitable.

Strreeeeaatch!

This is not a drill: a proper stretch after your game or training session is essential to preventing painful injuries. Everything from your tendons, to your muscles and ligaments, are susceptible to wear and tear. The more you stretch, the more flexible you become, the more likely you are to avoid sustaining serious injury when you change direction quickly or load weight on your joints.

Image Source: Pexels

Strength Training

Strength training—surprise, surprise—makes you stronger, which gives you finer muscular control. You’ll also find it easier to balance and feel more agile, both of which are crucial to preventing injury. Football is a fast-paced, contact sport which can be extremely taxing on the body. Strength conditioning is a great way to prepare the body for the demands of the game by building strength and agility.

Stay Fit

Don’t fall into the trap of letting yourself off the hook during the off-season. Ideally, you should try to stay in top shape throughout the year, but this may not be reasonable for everyone. The important thing is not to let your fitness drop to a point where you’ll need a boot-camp to whip you back into shape at the start of the season. The offseason is a good time to tend to any minor injuries you may have sustained over the last few months. Now that the pressure is off, you can invest time in rest (or doing those physio exercises you’ve been putting off all season).

Don’t Play Injured

This is a tough one for many footie enthusiasts. Who wants to sit a game out because of a twinging ankle or a slightly tender calf muscle? While it might be tempting to ignore a minor injury, you could do yourself way more damage by carelessly taking to the field. Be patient. Do what your physio has instructed you to do. You’ll thank yourself in a few weeks’ time when you’re running back on, injury-free.

Whether you’re a top-flight player or a five-a-sider, injury can ruin the fun. These tips will help you prevent minor and major injuries during the season and beyond.

Breakthroughs In Brain Injuries

Three key focuses of my blog are Athletics/Sports, Health/Wellness, and Technology. An area of high interest particularly in American Football is brain injuries. The protection efforts to protect against brain injuries are continuously unfolding. The following contributed post is entitled, Breakthroughs In Brain Injuries.

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Image Courtesy Of Jesse Orrico

It is not an uncommon fact that more and more people are suffering severe brain injuries these days. This is especially true in contact sports such as football. It has been reported that between 1.7 to 3 million sports-related concussions occur each year. That is a staggering number with severe consequences to the mental well-being of human beings.
There is a movement around youth football organizations to put an end to tackling. The horrific stories that have come from the National Football League has really raised many red flags on why contact like this is allowed with such hazardous consequences.

One of the biggest problems many parents will face with their children playing youth sports will be concussions. It is a scary thought for parents to think of the seriousness of the injury, but also the medical expenses that may follow depending on the severity of the injury. It is crucial for parents to know their legal rights as well as what treatment or preventative options are currently in the works.

Legal Rights
A rare inside look into the legal system and submitting insurance claims and making sure that you are being taken care of fairly can be found at Pennsylvania Workers Comp. This book provides insight to make sure that you and your loved one are being well taken care of in your scariest of moments.

You can also find information about how serious the National Football League is starting to take in regard to the number of concussions occurring each week. Traumatic Brain Injuries is something that cannot be ignored, and parents need to know their rights to medical attention. Real life tragedies of NFL players can be found here as well as the financial responsibilities the NFL has recently taken on to settle disputes.

Fortunately, the world of Science and Technology has allowed researchers and scientists the ability to delve deeper into studying the brain and coming up with ways to help diminish this problem. However, there is still much work to be done.

Current Research
STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) has a mission of pursuing new knowledge and then use that knowledge to invent new mechanisms to improve our lives. This has been vital in the brain injury world. One particular study has been looking at the impact of American football helmets. One invention currently in the works is a Helmet Impact Tubing System. The goal is to lower the number of head force impacts over years of use. However, it is proven that the repetitive hits that players take day to day and week to week are what eventually takes its toll on the brain.

Another study being done is looking at if stem cells can help to repair traumatic brain injuries. This clinical trial involves using bone marrow-derived stem cells are repair agents. Traumatic Brain Stem Cell Repair is trying to find at least of an invasive measure to work on the brain and replace those damaged cells. It is still in the early stages, but in the world of Science and Technology, this could potentially be a massive breakthrough in helping to save millions of lives every year.