How Work Injury Chiropractor Care Can Help You

According to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there were approximately 2.7 million workplace injuries and illnesses reported in 2020. That is nearly 8,000 injuries every day. Only a small fraction of these reports (just over 390,000) were about workers who contracted viral, bacterial, or toxin-related diseases; the remainder reported non-fatal physical injuries. If you are in the process of a workers’ compensation claim, you may need to see a chiropractor.

When most laypeople hear a term such as “accident and injury chiropractic,” they usually think of getting a back or neck adjustment after work-related injuries or motor vehicle crashes. While that is certainly one of the benefits of chiropractic care, there are many more ways in which a chiropractor can help patients.

Who Can Benefit From a Work Injury Chiropractor?

While most people associate occupational injuries with heavy industry such as construction, warehousing, and manufacturing, they can affect almost any occupation — including white-collar, clerical, and service jobs such as retail. In fact, many are surprised to find out that healthcare workers are among the most likely to suffer a workplace injury.

Here is a list of high-risk occupations.

Nurses and Other Health Care Providers

For 2020, the BLS reported that over ten percent of nursing assistants were injured on the job. This should not come as a surprise: health care workers engage in many physical activities that expose them to common workplace injuries, including bending, walking and standing for extended periods (increasing the risk of slip-and-fall injuries), and moving patients from one place to another. Almost three-quarters of these injuries occur in hospitals.

General Laborers

Longshoremen, warehouse workers, and others whose jobs are to freight and other materials are often injured on the job. Back injuries are the most common, but slip-and-fall accidents and injuries caused by moving or falling objects also happen frequently. The majority of these can benefit from accident and injury chiropractic.

Truckers and Delivery Drivers

These workers are prone to the same kind of injuries as other manual laborers because of moving and carrying loads. In addition, not all cabs are ergonomically friendly; sitting behind the wheel for hours at a time can play havoc with the lower back and lumbar region. Additionally, there is the risk of whiplash injury and neck pain from a vehicle collision.

Repair and Maintenance Workers

Many people who maintain and repair machinery must crawl or reach into cramped areas. Twisting the wrong way or working in an awkward position can result in any number of ways that call for accident and injury chiropractic services.

Retail and Service Employees

Those working in retail sales, food service and hospitality also face the hazards of slip-and-fall accidents and carrying and moving objects. Repetitive motion injuries also develop with cashiers who must operate registers is common as well.

Clerical/White Collar Workers

Carpal tunnel syndrome is prevalent among typists, secretaries, data-entry workers, and anyone else who uses a keyboard. In addition, sitting in a hunched over position in a non-ergonomic chair can cause pain in the upper back, neck and shoulders.

How a Work Injury Chiropractor Can Help

The Association of Chiropractic Colleges defines chiropractic as  “a healthcare discipline that emphasizes the inherent recuperative power of the body to heal itself without the use of drugs or surgery.” This is our focus at Metro Healthcare Partners: to tap into your body’s natural healing process. In addition to relieving injury-related neck and back pain, chiropractic can treat conditions that can spring from a work related injury, such as headaches and decreased range of motion. 

Many workplace injuries can benefit from chiropractic treatment, including:

• muscle strain
• joint injuries and sprains
• tendonitis
• repetitive motion injuries 
• spinal and skeletal injuries
• compressed/pinched nerves

A chiropractor may recommend ongoing exercises or massage therapy, and even provide dietary advice.

What to Expect at Accident and Injury Chiropractic

Like family physicians, dentists, and other health care specialists, the chiropractors at Metro Healthcare Partners are licensed professionals. As such, their approach to injury is similar to what one would expect at any other health care provider’s office. Like other doctors, they conduct patient interviews and take a detailed health and medical history. They do examinations and tests in order to reach a diagnosis, then chart out a course of treatment accordingly.

Benefits of Chiropractic Care: Specific Treatments

Chiropractors at Metro Healthcare Partners have numerous techniques and tools at their disposal. Every individual is different, and treatments should be tailored to the patient’s specific injury and situation.  Here are some of the most common tools and chiropractic adjustments that a work injury chiropractor may use.

Activator Technique

Generally, this technique is used for cases of lower back pain and injury-related headaches. An activator is a spring-loaded, hand-held instrument. Most of these resemble a large syringe with a blunt end (as opposed to a needle); others are shaped like a small hairdryer or glue gun. Nearly 70 percent of chiropractors use the activator technique, during which small impulses are delivered to the spine.

Flexion/Distraction

This is a spinal adjustment method requiring the use of a specialized table with moving components.  The design enables the chiropractor to treat spinal and lower back injuries by moving these components.

Spinal Decompression

Patients suffering from disc injuries and pinched nerves from an accident can benefit from this common technique, which involves gentle pressure applied to the ends of the spine, gradually stretching it out. Normally, the patient requires multiple sessions.

Gonstead Adjustment

Developed nearly a century ago by Dr. Clarence Gonstead, this method requires that an x-ray image be taken of the affected area to make the most accurate diagnosis and eliminate any degenerative conditions (such as arthritis) that may be causing pain.

Ready to Feel Better?

There is no reason to live with the pain and limitations of an occupational injury. The staff at Metro Healthcare Partners are trained in non-surgical, non-invasive techniques for a wide range of injuries that will have you back up and running soon! In addition to chiropractic, we offer orthopedics, neurology, physical therapy and other methods of pain relief.