As you have seen in the section on the benefits of work, using work to benefit your health should be a team effort. What is your responsibility in this and what can you expect from the other teams players such as your employer and your GP?
Traditionally back pain has often been associated with certain activities such as repetitive heavy lifting, bending and awkward postures. These factors certainly play a role and simple measures can reduce these risk factors. However there are also others factors that you may not directly associate with your back but have proven to be very important in keeping persons with back pain at work. You can think of support and understanding from your manager and colleagues, your state of mind when you experience back pain and relevant policies and services at the organisation you work for. Your chances of remaining at or returning to work are much better if all these factors are addressed.
The first thing to do when back pain hampers your work is to see if you can change your work to better suit the ability of your body. You can think of very simple measures or more widespread changes, depending on what you think would work best for you and your organisation. Examples of adaptations include:
- Changes to how you do things at work.
For example; have you been using lifting and handling aids when moving heavy or large items? Do you think you can benefit from (more) training to use such tools? Many office workers rely heavily on email and telephone to stay in contact with others, even colleagues who may be working in the same building. Why not walk over to them and tell what you wanted to email initially? Such a short break from your desk work can do wonders for your comfort. - Changes to what you do at work.
If certain activities give you more discomfort than others, you may be able to agree with your line manager a temporary change in your duties. If heavy lifting makes your back pain worse, why not ask if you could do some other tasks until your back pain has disappeared? - Changes to your work environment.
Is your work environment adequately set up? This is not only important for office workers, but also for people doing manual jobs. Can you make some changes to limit repetitive heavy lifting or bending? - Changes to your working hours.
Many people with back pain find that they can work for a certain period but then the pain gets very bad and they need to stop. Instead of ceasing all your work, why not agree temporary changes in your working hours? If you are working part-time, you may be able to spread your working hours over more days. Full-timers may want to agree a temporary reduction in working hours; this is still better than going on sick leave completely! - Wise use of (mini)-breaks.
A 15-minute coffee break can be used to do some stretches, go for a short walk or at least do something that is completely different from what you are doing all day. Even a short 1-minute stretch every half hour can be a welcome break.
As you can see many of these changes are simple to integrate in your daily routine. Discuss them with your line manager and explain that these simple changes will allow you to continue coming to work. Also discuss when you will evaluate these measures and agree a plan on how to return to your normal activities. Although some changes such as the mini-breaks and work environment should be definitive.
Read more in the next section on communication and co-operation.