At a seminar on back pain in the workplace, Dr Chad Taylor, a consultant in pain medicine at the General Hospital, said that getting employees back to work was crucial in aiding their recovery, whereas sending them home for long periods could have an adverse effect on their attitude to work.
Although 60 to 80% of adults suffer from back pain, and one in eight people who are signed off work give it as their reason, 90% of acute pains get better by themselves within six weeks, and mobility is crucial in achieving recovery, said Dr Taylor, adding that whereas those returning to work after a few days or even weeks were often unaffected by their time off, those who suffered for longer were at risk.
‘It’s a vicious cycle,’ he said.
‘People have back pain so they are signed off work, which decreases their movement, which makes the pain worse – leading to more time off work.
The costs to society are huge.
He called for employers to make more effort to get people back to work, even on a more part-time basis, so that they are not stuck at home.
‘The way forward is not to rest,’ he said.
‘We should be encouraging positive not protective behaviour.
We should be getting chronically unemployed people who have back pain back to work.
