Evidence from:
M.Hakkanen et al. Occupational and Environmental Medicine (2001) Vol.58 #2 p.129.
Results show that the most significant risk factor for absence with diagnosable arm, neck and shoulder disorders is age: Age 30-40 Risk Ratio = 2.9 (95% confidence interval 1.2 to 7.1). High physical load was protective.
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Evidence from:
G.A.M.Ariens et al. Occupational and Environmental Medicine (2001) Vol.58 #3 p.200.
Among those sitting, neck pain (but not a diagnosis) was more likely if the neck was flexed by 20 degrees for more than 70% of the time.
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Evidence from:
RSI conference 2nd March 2001.
RSI was regarded by one speaker to be an almost meaningless term.
The development of chronic pain conditions is a multi-factorial problem, with contributions from psychological, psychosocial, ergonomic and organisational factors.
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Evidence from:
JMcBeth et al. Arthritis and Rheumatism, April (2001) Vol.44 #4 p940.
Out of 1953 people who were considered for the study 295 (15%) were excluded because they already had chronic widespread pain (CWP).
Prevalence of new CWP (at 12 months after enrollment) ranged from 5.3% (95% CI = 3.1,7.5) to 7.4%(95% CI = 4.8,10.0) ages 18-34 and 50-64 respectively.
Predictive factors were measured.
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Evidence from:
MWeber et al. Pain. April (2001) Vol.91 #3 p 251
Chronic regional pain syndrome (CRPS) may provide insight into DRSI. In this study a hypersensitive neurological state was observed in CRPS cases. Similar hypersensitivity might be observable in DRSI cases; worth looking into…Screening for neural hypersensitivity could help reduce the incidence of pain problems at work.
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Evidence from:
P Fearnon and M Hotopf. BMJ. May (2001) #7295 p 1145
At age 33, 9.3% had multiple somatic complaints, 13.9% had evidence of psychiatric morbidity. Women and children of the manual classes were over-represented in this outcome set.
The above finding is not strong enough to show on the balance of probabilities, that adult problems are entirely due to factors that were also present in childhood, but the precision of the findings are strongly suggestive a definite link.
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Evidence from:
S Bergman et al. Journal of Rheumatology. June (2001) Vol. 28 #6 p 1369.
Prevalence of chronic pain increased with age, for example, 17% at age 20-24 to 50% at age 60-64.
Employers should have an expectation that a significant proportion of their work force will be in pain regardless of conditions at work.
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Evidence from:
ES Nahit, GJ Macfarlane et al. Journal of Rheumatology. June (2001) Vol. 28 # p 1378.
There is a clear association between pain and stress. At present, from these results, it is not possible to distinguish whether the pain causes the perception of stress or the perception of stress causes the pain?
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Evidence from:
Report of the employers forum: a one day meeting on the 7th September 2001, Edinburgh.
It was generally agreed that physical work factors are rarely the cause of the development of chronicity, though some reduction of workload or variation of tasks would be appropriate in many cases until the problem had sufficiently resolved. The key factor was the retention of the worker at the workplace while resolution occurred. This would avoid losing the working habit and losing social contacts at work as well as encouraging normal levels of physical activity. On the other hand, poor work habits should not be maintained.
The forum was strongly influenced by the flags model of risk factors for pain states.
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Evidence from:
GAM Ariens et al. Spine. September (2001) Vol. 26 #17 p 1896.
Significant associations between neck pain and psychosocial variables were: High Job demands RR = 2.14 (95% CI = 1.28 to 3.58) Low Co worker support RR = 2.43 (95% CI = 1.11 to 5.29)
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Evidence from:
J McBeth et al. Journal of Rheumatology. October (2001) Vol. 28 #10 p 2305.
This result is at odds with findings (mainly from USA) which find strong links between CWP and child sex abuse. The finding counts against the examination of life histories in the search for causes of CWP.
This was a relatively good study.
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Evidence from:
HJCG Coury et al. International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics (2002) Vol. 29 p.33.
When doing the same manual job, women took more sick leave than did men. But the main explanatory variable was length of tenure as opposed to pain or disability.
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Evidence from:
KT Palmer et al. Occupational Med. (2001) Vol. 51 p. 392.
Shoulder pain and wrist/hand pains were significantly associated with keyboard use. Prevalence ratios were of the order of 1.4 (95% CI = 1.1 to 1.7). Prevalence of problems among women was higher than among men (>30% higher) typically 10% had pain within the last week.
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Evidence from:
S Hollmann et al. Work and Stress. March (2001) Vol. 15#1 p. 29.
Further research on the proposed link between occupational stress and MSK complaints. The study found that people with higher physical workloads reported greater psychosocial demand and more msk complaints. The cause of this correlation could not be ascertained from this study design.
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