August is Tradies National Health Month!

By Alayne Hamilton

The term ‘Tradies’ refers to technicians and trades workers, labourers, machinery operators and machinery drivers.

We can’t go through this month without first addressing a stereotype; 

TRADIE (ˈtreɪdɪ) noun: The pie eating, iced coffee drinking trades worker who never exercises, gets up early and stays up late and drinks too much beer. The tradie breezes through their 20’s then as time goes on suffers from all those aches and pains that used to just “go away on their own in a couple of days’’. 

Fortunately; 2019 data from the APA shows that 70% of today’s tradies’ report that they are trying to eat a healthy diet and only 20% reported that they never engage in exercise. This is great news!

Although it’s time to rethink the stereotype, there’s no denying that by the nature of their occupation and workplace environment, tradespeople are at an increased risk of suffering a workplace injury. 

This has significant ramifications for the individual, business and client as people are removed from the workplace during their recovery, sometimes for a long period of time. This can also have the flow on effect of high stress and declining mental health. The juxtaposition of when to return to work financially and professionally vs. physical recovery can be a difficult one to balance, especially for the self employed.

So, how can we make sure our tradies are safe at work? 

Prevention!

Prevention of musculoskeletal injury is the best approach. An osteopathic preventative approach includes manual treatment as well as targeted exercise and rehabilitation activities to ensure that the body is biomechanically functioning optimally and activities are being carried out in a safe way; not unlike training for sport. Making sure that the body is capable of withstanding the physical stresses it encounters throughout the work day is vital. 

Again, focussing on parallels with sport, we all see professional athletes warming up before a game and generally accept that when we exercise, warm ups are a good idea. However, only 24% of tradies reported that they warmed up before work in the 2019 APA Australian Tradies Health Research report. Workplace attitude/culture was largely blamed for this low number. 

If you’re interested in learning more about what conditions you (or the tradie in your life) is at risk of developing, have a look at this interactive tool from WorkSafe Victoria;

http://injuryhotspots.com.au/#/.

Injury hotspots allows you to browse the conditions that are frequently reported in different occupations and even gives suggestions on how to minimise risk with “Safety Solutions”.

For example, the 3 most common areas of injury for a labourer are; 

Axial: low back pain/injury

Lower limb: Knee injury

Upper limb: Hand/finger injury

Whatever your role and whatever the occupational environment, prevention is the key to success in looking after yourself and your team at work!

Injury Perception

INJURY PERCEPTION

When is an “injury” an “Injury”?

Or would that be better phrased when is a “niggle” or an “ache” an “injury”?

It is not uncommon for a new appointment to come up, and through the discussion of the case, there usually has been a tipping point as to why this person has sought treatment at this time. It can be the upcoming overseas trip, a pending new arrival to the family or the approaching season on the sporting calendar and many other reasons. In a lot of cases, the symptoms of the injury have not changed all that much over the preceding days/week however the circumstances surrounding the person has and hence the motivation to resolve the issue has changed. The perception of this injury has changed.

Recently I was following a live tweet of the Salzburg Sports Physiotherapy Symposium (SSPS) and the idea of injury perception was discussed. The discussion focused around the idea of time loss and the idea that people (or in the case of the presentation, the athlete) only consider something an injury when it impacts on performance and thus impacts on participation or involvement. Take a look at the following image showing part of the presentation.

In relation to an athlete, injury and performance are clearly defined and obvious with a clear link to ability and participation, however I think the lines get blurred when we discuss injury over a generalised population due to the variety of circumstances that are inherently changeable, to summarise, consideration of an injury is a matter of circumstance and those circumstances are always changing. (That ankle might feel really sore when it comes to taking the bins out however it doesn't feel so bad when kicking the football with the kids in the backyard)

The first aspect of this chart, - Impact on performance - across a generalised population Is variable from person to person depending on circumstances and can mean many things from our ability to work and complete tasks, our involvement with family activities and the ability to look after them to our overall enjoyment in our day to day lives. Performance is very much an athlete driven word there, if we change that to impact on daily living, it becomes a lot more relatable.  

The importance of an event is going to impact on how we perceive an injury. For an athlete this could be the difference between a regular season match or a finals game. When applied to a general population we can discuss - for instance - taking a day off work due to injury could be deemed suitable when workload is quiet but taking the day off when there is a full schedule of important meetings and so on involved,in this event the injury takes a back seat.

When it comes to self management it is a goal of mine and all the Osteopaths at Rockhopper to help people into the best position to manage their own bodies. The physical component of injury is obviously a focus point for us and our management of your injury will come in various forms from hands on in clinic treatment to out of clinic directives such as stretches, exercise programs, educational content.

However self management doesn't always mean management in isolation or on your own. A key component of self management is being able to discern when the need for follow up treatment or additional help is required. As shown in the image way up the top of this page, a key aspect of perception is understanding and if we can identify and understand an injury that will change how we perceive it and put us in a much better position to manage it now and also in the future.

So, with all the discussion here, I'd make a few changes to this chart and present it as shown below.

Physitrack @ Rockhopper

The days of taking home a scribbled piece of paper with a few (poorly) drawn exercises are over (we’re osteopaths not artists after all, haha). No more searching for it in the car or turning the house over trying to find that damned piece of paper.

A warm welcome to Rockhopper’s new favourite toy. Physitrack!! An app based program that allows us to send a structured tailored program of exercises that can be accessed from your phone easily - How cool is that!

The programs we set at rockhopper usually run from 4-8 weeks depending on the presentation, when we set these programs we like to schedule an extended consult (45 min) as a follow up session towards the end of your program, this allows time for a full treatment and reassessment of your exercise program that can then be edited to match your abilities and progression!

Below are a few tips to accessing your program plus a few things that each of us here at Rockhopper are loving about it.

Each program is accessed via an 8 letter code that is specific to your program. This means your program is only accessed by you and the osteopaths at rockhopper.

Step 2

Download Physiapp or log in online

Within the email is a link to download PhysiApp which is your access point. You can also view your program online at physiapp.com. Once you’re in you can set reminders and also pre download any video content so you can access it offline.  

Each program will come with a short message from your osteopath, if we have any additional information for you, it will show here. Depending on the case, we may include a specific questionnaire for you to complete at the start and end of your program, this is called an outcome measure and it is a way for us to track your progression from start to finish, and importantly can help us pick up areas that may need extra attention.

Step 4

Your program!

Most rockhopper programs will include 3-10 exercises. The order they appear in your program is our recommended way of completing the program. Each exercise will have a schedule of reps and sets. There may be some additional notes that we have included just for you too.

Step 5

The Exercise!

Each exercise has a video and a text description to ensure that you are doing them in an informed and correct manner. Occasionally, we will make small adjustments to how we would prefer the exercise to be done, those notes will be shown here. Once you have completed the designated sets and reps hit the complete button up in the top right.

Once you complete your exercise, fill out the amount of reps and sets you were able to complete and if there was any pain during the exercise. You can also give specific feedback for each exercise. This is a great spot to ask any questions, we’ll do our best to get back to you about it quickly.

Here is what the Rockhopper team has been saying about Physitrack.

What’s Cameron’s favourite part of Physitrack

“It is fantastic not having to write out programs by hand and use terribly drawn stick figures as diagrams. The videos and descriptions allow me to provide a few extra exercises into a program to really get things moving without making the program overwhelming”

What Tegan enjoys about Physitrack

“I really like how it enables us to manage and create tailored home-based exercises to fit the individual needs of our patients. Not only is it simple and easy to use, but it is also beneficial for all age groups and fitness levels. I really love how Physitrack reminds you to do your exercises, so you are less likely to forget to do them.

What Tink loves about Physitrack

“I love that I can still have lots of hands-on treatment time and know that the Physitrack videos are more thorough to help people remember the details of the exercises we give, rather than spending as much time as previously during treatment explaining them.”

If you have been using a physitrack program be sure to let us know what you enjoyed about it!

Stay mobile,

Cameron Allshorn

Osteopath @ Rockhopper