It is difficult to make strong evidenced-based recommendations about what practitioners should do to prevent or manage upper extremity MSDs. There is a paucity of high quality OHS interventions evaluating upper extremity MSDs and none focused on traumatic injury outcomes or workplace mandated pre-placement screening exams. We recommend that worksites not engage in OHS activities that include only workstation adjustments. However, when combined with ergonomics training, there is limited evidence that workstation adjustments are beneficial. A practice to consider is using arm supports to reduce upper extremity MSDs.
The need for further research in this area is necessary to reduce the burden of back pain on employees and their families, employers, and the health care system.
Although validation studies of self-report health-related work outcome measures for patients with musculoskeletal disorders exist, they appear to be limited in the quality of their psychometric properties. There is a need to continue to validate health-related work outcome measures and to make them more meaningful for patients and clinicians.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.