Occupational Physiotherapy

What is occupational physiotherapy and why is it important?

The average Australian is at work almost 2000 hours per year. While more people are working in offices, this doesn’t decrease their risk of injury. Physiotherapy has a vital role to play in employee health.

Traditionally, small aches and pains are ignored and left without any proper treatment. When these small niggles aren’t treated when they occur, they can result in expensive claims and lost time.

Injuries have a significant financial impact on an organisation, but more importantly, they negatively impact the injured employee. This leads to lower job satisfaction and will decrease job performance across the board.

More severe workplace injuries are also very common and can involve any part of the body. Some common injuries include low back strain/sprain, muscle strains, tendonitis and carpal tunnel. Our highly trained physiotherapists can help you minimise, avoid and treat these types of injuries.

Taking a proactive approach and encouraging early reporting is essential. Functional movement tests and early intervention injury management ensures that injuries are dealt with well before they become worse.

 

Get an Assessment with an Occupational Physiotherapist to make your workstation safe

 

City Physiotherapy offers occupational physiotherapy services to all types of business in the Adelaide CBD. These services include:

Onsite ergonomic assessment for workstations

Our qualified physiotherapists can conduct an Assessment of a workers’ office or other workstation, including individuals posture at the workstation and reporting of changes recommended. Ergonomic seating helps reduce the stress placed on your body, providing proper support and improved comfort. They do this by conforming to the worker’s shape and supporting their spine.

Posture within a seated position is vital to reducing injuries and improving productivity. Posture, movement, and temperature are all factors to take into consideration in an ergonomic assessment

Pre-employment assessment

Our pre-employment assessment considers if potential employees possess the acceptable physical capacity to perform the specified role. This can be tailored to specific types of roles or industries. We ensure that your employees can perform all the roles they need to. It also minimises the risk of injury within the workplace.

Worksite assessments

Ergonomic worksite assessments assess workers whilst they’re in their workplace or environment. This assessment can be used to provide ergonomic set-up of workstations or assess specific work-related concerns. Helps to prevent problems by fixing their causes before they lose your business money. Provides a safer environment, increasing employee satisfaction and job performance.

Graduated return to work plans

Development of staged plans to assist injured workers to increase their capacity safely back to a return to pre-injury duties.

Manual handling, training, and reporting

We offer in house training for workers in the theory and practice of safe manual handling. Identification and documentation of risk of injury due to manual handling in the workplace. This can be done with a job dictionary.

Development of job dictionary

Document physical demands of each role within a workplace. Useful as a reference tool for Workcover purposes and regular OH&S audits.

Our occupational physiotherapists have extensive experience in a variety of settings including but not limited to industrial, nursing and office.

Occupational Therapy Adelaide

Benefits of Occupational Physiotherapy

  • Employees performing tasks that stress their body can cost your business money. While the costs linked with ergonomics like special chairs seem to outweigh the benefits, healthier employees create economical businesses.
  • By utilising good ergonomic practices, you can reduce costs associated with lost work time and workers’ compensation in the long term.
  • When employees are in pain, they focus on that, thus losing focus on their work. Studies have shown that productivity plummets the more pain someone feels. Properly set-up workstations create happier employees. A comfortable workstation, allowing good posture and reduced motions can even increase work productivity.

Fitted workstations increase job performance and reduce injuries in the workplace.

  • Awkward working postures can be distracting and uncomfortable for workers. Poorly designed workstations can lead to frustration and employees who don’t do their best work.
  • When you invest time ensuring your employees are healthy and safe, it will be noticed. When employees feel taken care of by their company it will increase morale and reduce staff turnover.
  • Providing occupational education to your employees such as safe handling techniques or workplace process improvements to prevent injuries.
  • Help the return to work by providing changes to duties, rehabilitation treatment and opening the lines of communication. This allows medical professionals, managers, and the injured worker to create a practical pathway for returning to work earlier together.
  • Early intervention and fast-tracked return to work practices reduce the overall cost of workers’ compensation claims and insurance premiums.

 

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