When it comes to your health and safety, you should know that you don’t have to work in an environment that inherently lends itself to danger to be subject to on-the-job injuries. Everyday offices can be just as accident prone! While many offices portray a focus on employee health and safety, some incidents are just tough to avoid. The top five most common workplace injuries are a result of the following:

• Falls or trips
• Over-lifting
• Flying or stationary objects
• Improper workstation Ergonomics
• Co-worker misconduct

These kinds of office related accidents can often be life altering and lead to loss of income coupled with mountains of medical bills. In fact, many doctors practicing plastic surgery in Washington DC report many of their patients come to them as a result of some kind of workplace injury. And these Washington DC plastic surgeons are right! Statistically, a large percentage of plastic surgery procedures are brought on by an initial workplace injury. To you and me, this means dollar signs. Necessary procedures like those discussed significantly add to the cost of overall medical care, only furthering the financial impact of workplace accidents. Because these seemingly sheepish incidents can have such an effect on your overall health and safety, the top work injury lawyer Atlanta, GA offers has a few helpful pointers to ensure your interests are properly looked after:

1. Avoid these kinds of accidents by practicing good health and safety habits: While it’s obvious, it’s important to note that paying attention to your surroundings and properly managing your work station and working relationships will nip a majority of workplace injuries in the bud.
   However, if your accident is unavoidable…
2. File a claim immediately: With your insurance and your company. Don’t let the passage of time keep you from the compensation that is rightfully yours.
3. Keep thorough documentation of any and all medical bills: This will assist your workers compensation lawyer in Atlanta, GA get you the financial relief you deserve much quicker.

Don’t be fooled. Every office and working environment has its own inherent risks. Don’t wait until it’s too late; take action to secure your own health and safety in your workplace today!

It takes time to notice that there is anything wrong at all. At first most of your dominant hand simply feels numb. At the beginning you likely only feel it as you wake up. Perhaps it’s just “asleep.” You give it a shake and get on with the day, and after an hour or two it’s gone again. But then you start noticing it more frequently. It happens during the day now, and you can’t shake it off like you used to. Then one day, you’re sitting in your office and you feel your hand acting up again. Yet, this time, it’s no longer numb — although you wish it were. Instead, you feel a sharp pain running up from your forearm all the way into your dominant fingers. The pain is severe and it wont stop. You decide to see a doctor and are finally forced to accept that everything is not all right — you have carpal tunnel syndrome.

Carpal tunnel syndrome occurs when pressure is increased on the median nerve and tendons on the carpal tunnel, located on the base of the hand. Workers of certain professions are more likely than others to develop this syndrome. The most common careers for those who tend to develop carpal tunnel largely include those performing assembly line work – cleaning, manufacturing, finishing, sewing, and meat, poultry, or fish packing. Surveys show that carpal tunnel is three times more likely among those involved in assembly line work than data entry personnel.

If you are employed in an industry in which do any of the work previously listed, it could truly be to your benefit to attempt to avoid carpal tunnel syndrome before it’s too late. Here are a few things you can try to decrease that risk:

1. Stretching and Strengthening
   The number one way to avoid developing carpal tunnel syndrome is by strengthening your hand and developing greater flexibility. Focus these stretches and exercises on the forearms, wrists, hands, shoulders, and neck.
2. Take Microbreaks
   If you find yourself doing repetitive tasks at work throughout the day, fit in as many micro breaks as you can. These breaks should last around three minutes and can be used to stretch the hand for greater benefits.
3. Avoiding repetition
   If you have the ability to perform certain tasks in different way (using different muscle, fingers, angles, movement types, etc) then be sure to mix it up as much as possible.

These techniques, of course, can only decrease your chances of developing carpal tunnel — they won’t prevent it from happening 100% of the time. If you find that your job has caused you to develop carpal tunnel, there are treatment options available. These typically include medications and exercises, and sometimes surgery in severe cases. These treatments can be expensive, however, and may require you to take time off of work. If you have developed carpal tunnel and think you can’t afford treatment, you may still have options. Palm Beach Gardens workers’ compensation lawyers may be able to get you the compensation you need to treat your carpal tunnel syndrome. Contact our Palm Beach Gardens workers compensation lawyers today for a free case evaluation.

When illness or injury strike, finding the care you need is important, but it may not always be straightforward. Depending on your insurance provider, the source of your injury, and your location, your options for finding a qualified medical professional– be they an asthma doctor in Washington DC or an orthopedic surgeon in Newark, DC– may be quite limited. We hope, however, that by asking the questions below, you will be able to simplify the process and find the quality healthcare you deserve:

How were you injured? If you sustained an at-work injury or illness, your workers’ compensation should provide you with a network of medical professionals and specialists who can treat your injury. For instance, if you developed asthma at your workplace in Manassas, VA, your insurance provider should be able to connect you with a Manassas, VA asthma doctor at no cost to you. However, if your injuries did not occur in the workplace or while you were working, you are not entitled to workers’ compensation. This, of course, has its drawbacks from a cost perspective, but leaves you a wider, better selection of doctors who can tend to your specific needs. If your injury was the result of domestic violence, you may be able to file a personal injury claim, and your assailant may have to pay your medical bills. This leads us to our next question–

How will you cover costs? This is a matter of your financial resources, whether you have successfully filed an insurance claim, and whether you have adequate insurance. Your healthcare plan, if you have a good one, may cover a large portion of your expenses but, more than likely, you will have to come out of pocket on some expenses. The regulations vary with different plans and from state to state. If you cannot cover the costs, and your injuries were caused by another party’s willful or negligent acts, you may be able to get compensation for your medical expenses. Speak to a personal injury lawyer about obtaining compensation for your medical expenses.

Does your doctor come recommended? When referred to any doctor, be it through workers’ comp or some other channel, be sure to do your research. Asking former patients is a helpful way to know if your health will be in the hands of a capable provider. Of course, doctors and patients have confidentiality agreements, which will prevent you from knowing who is a former patient, but if you have any friends or family who have seen this doctor, you can ask them. Alternately, you can look for online reviews. Be wary of sites like Yelp, which tend to give a skewed picture, instead focusing on more trusted medical review sites such as Zocdocs, Healthgrades, RateMDs and Vitals.com. Many healthcare professionals such as this allergist in Washington DC, have honest reviews posted to these respected sites. Often, they can post client reviews to their own sites as on http://www.bkallergy.com/testimonials/. Be mindful, however, that doctors have more control of the reviews that go on these sites and will likely only post the best ones.

You may be in a hurry to find a medical professional and certainly advocate getting the best care possible as quickly as possible. However, a little research can go a very long way, and it doesn’t hurt to ask yourself the above questions in your search for quality medical help.

 

Staying safe is about more than simply avoiding dangerous places and situations. There are certain dangers that cannot be avoided by wearing a seat belt and persistent vigilance. Among the most dangerous, and alarmingly the most ignored, in The United States are habits. Smoking, excessive drinking, and healthy eating can cause severe health issues that may make it hard to work — or worse. We assume that you already avoid drinking at work, yet smoke breaks and unhealthy food choices are still prevalent among many workplaces in The US. While cutting back the nicotine intake is more about personal choice and will power, eating healthy may have as much to do with the options available as personal choice — and possibly even more so.

Employers don’t always make it easy to eat healthy. If you work in an area with a lot of nearby restaurants, it may be up to you to decide to eat healthy or not. But there aren’t always great options around the premises, especially if you work in a less populated area. One way employers can increase food choices among their employees is by choosing to use organic vending machines in Washington DC. These vending machines with credit card readers in Washington DC are healthy and convenient, an easy way to provide healthy food choices among workers of any company.

For larger organizations, an even better way to create healthy eating habits among employees is to have an in-house cafeteria with a salad bar and a variety of other options, supplying whole-wheat bread and noodles as well as gluten and dairy-free options, and staying away from foods high in sodium and saturated fats. Creating in-house cafeterias, however, requires much time, money and resources to a company, which is why most companies choose not to.

Cleansing oneself of unhealthy habits is much easier said than done. Habits have been forming over a lifetime, and require a lot of conscious and strenuous effort to eliminate. Yet the positive effects of making such changes are invaluable. It is easy to ignore your bad habits because the negative effects do not typically present themselves until later in your life. It is this quality that makes these habits so dangerous. Don’t wait until it’s too late. Staying safe at work also means staying healthy. Your health is something you can never afford to neglect.

Technology is expanding faster than it ever has before — useful inventions come along one day and in a decade can become obsolete as they are replaced with something even more efficient and convenient. If you run a small business or plan to in the future, you will want to make sure you are always keeping up to date with modern technology. Achieving this is no small feat, but it can make or break your company. Today, your services need to be presented online — but simply having a website with contact information is not enough anymore. If possible, you should integrate your services online in a way that makes things more convenient for the customer. Have ways for your customers to set up appointments on your website without having to call the company. If there is any service you can provide without being face to face with your clients, you may want to consider making that service available online.

Keeping up with technology, however, should not be exclusively to the benefit of your clients. Your employees, too, will not only be very grateful if you provide them with convenient and up-to-date technologies, but you may also see improvements in your employees productivity levels. Out-of-date technology, such as old computers, can have devastating effects on the efficiency of your business. Those businesses that embrace new and efficient technologies are the ones that will still exist years later. Business is about survival of the fittest, and owners need to employ all of the most advanced tools they can.

There is more to keeping up with technology in business that using the shiniest computers and quickest internet services — there are many ways you can improve the daily lives of your employees. It is important to demonstrate your respect for your employees, and there are a few measures you can take that your employees will surely appreciate. One way is to provide them with a great selection of healthy and organic foods using vending machines with credit card readers in Washington DC. This technology means they no longer have to depend on constantly having enough change to acquire the food they desire. These organic vending machines in Washington DC also wirelessly monitor their client’s vending machines to determine exactly which foods are popular in different offices and venues and stock the machines accordingly.

Whichever measures you take to keep up with technology in your business venture, always remember that small gestures can go along way in garnering appreciation from your employees, which is an invaluable resource in and of itself.

 

There are many qualities about work that can make or break the job for you. Whether or not you enjoy the work, and presence of pressing deadlines are big factors, but there is another that is just as important: your coworkers. The issue with coworkers is, unless you own a business or run a branch, you don’t get to choose the people you work with. For many people, this isn’t an issue. Fortunately, most employees are professional and at least acceptably courteous — they learn to be; otherwise, they will find it difficult to hold a job. Sometimes, however, a couple of employees just don’t work well together. Whether it’s the competitive atmosphere or simply a clash of personalities, there are times when it is very difficult to diminish tensions throughout the workday. Although the likelihood is small, there is always the possibility that employees with tension between them may lash out and act violently towards one another. In order to increase productivity of tense employees and avoid the possibility of violence, there are a few things you can try to diminish the antagonism and resentment that may be present between your employees.

• Confront the Issue: The longer you let an issue stir the worse off it will be. Once you determine that there is an issue between any employees, you should consider the issue and address it immediately. Allowing it to “work itself out” is usually not a good idea.
• Listen to Both Sides: Showing favoritism or immediately taking sides will simply exacerbate things. Before you decide to hand out punishments or penalties, make sure you know both sides of the story well. Instead of acting as a judge, act as a mediator.
• Find Common Ground: as a mediator, you should seek to find something that both employees can agree to, which will allow you to bridge the gap between them.
• Seek Compromise: Unless one employee is being completely unreasonable, your best option to eliminate tensions is to seek compromise. Favoring one employee in the resolution will only cause the other employee to be as angry with you as he or she may be with the other, and will likely raise tensions altogether.

Of course, these are only things you can do to try and stifle the aggravation. As DUI lawyers in Washington, DC know very well, acts of violence may sometimes be very hard to avoid in the workplace. Once it has happened, however, it is important to take care of it properly. If you have been charged for assault at work, contact Washington DC criminal lawyers today for a consultation.

 

Today, asbestos is notorious for its known link to a cancer of the lungs known as asbestos cancer, or ‘mesothelioma’. Thousands of workers have been affected by asbestos in the United States in the construction of offices, industrial buildings, ships and factories. But why is asbestos illness still so prevalent, even though its use has been widely halted since the 1970s and banned in more than 40 countries? Why was asbestos used so extensively in the 19th and 20th centuries that it still commonly causes illness today?

The earliest records of the use of asbestos come from as far back as ancient Greece. In fact, the word “asbestos” is the ancient Greek word for ‘inextinguishable’. Asbestos is a mineral that is fireproof and acts as a great insulator. These ancient people understood the benefits of asbestos, and began to use it in the construction of buildings, homes, and as cloth to make clothing and blankets. Asbestos has proven to be so detrimental to health, however, that even the ancient world was — albeit to a lesser extent — aware of its danger. Documents from the Holy Roman Empire illustrate that the Romans recognized illness the slaves they forced to work in the asbestos mines.

Despite the fact that even ancient people with little understanding of illness and science could recognize the dangers of asbestos, it was still widely used until the 1970s. Those who mined asbestos faced severe lung damage and had an average lifespan much lower than that of the average person. Thousands of American workers have fallen ill due to asbestos present in older buildings, offices and ships. Many have been able to receive compensation through the help of personal injury lawyers in Brooklyn NY. If you have developed mesothelioma through exposure on the premises where you work, you may be entitled to compensation. Contact Brooklyn NY personal injury lawyers today for a free consultation.

Those most likely to fall ill due to exposure to asbestos are navy veterans and retired shipyard workers, although they are only a small number of the thousands who fall ill to asbestos in the United States every year. Today, over 200,000 American citizens are living with mesothelioma, and more than 10,000 will develop it this year. Personal injury lawyers in Brooklyn New York can help.

 

Forty three years ago, the number of work related deaths in The United States was around 14,000 deaths per year. This was the year the United States Department of Labor decided to do something about it. They had just developed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and through their efforts managed to cut work related deaths down by two thirds. What makes this feat even more astonishing is that the US population has increased by over one hundred million people since then. This is surely a victory for the American people.

But the fight isn’t over.

In the US last year, 12 workers were fatally injured on average every day. The five most common industries for worker deaths were found to be:

1. Construction
2. Natural Resources and Mining
3. Professional & Business Services
4. Manufacturing
5. Leisure and Hospitality

Clearly many Americans are in danger — these are huge industries. So what can be done to combat this unnerving trend?

One useful tool is the legal protection of informants, introduced in section 11c of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, which is intended to protect employees against retaliation by their employers (such as being fired) if they speak out about hazardous conditions and employer negligence concerning employee safety.

Critics, however, argue that this act has not been very effective. It may be of little comfort to those who have lost loved ones to workplace fatalities, but there has been some success for families of these unfortunate people in obtaining compensation by hiring attorneys who specialize in wrongful death cases, such as personal injury lawyers in Frederick MD. If you or someone you know has died as a result of an unsafe work environment or employer negligence, contact Frederick MD personal injury lawyers– or personal injury lawyers in your area– for a free case evaluation.

For some people in the United States, it can be difficult to avoid dangerous work in the face of desperation. It is important to know that you do have options available. Every worker has the right to feel safe on the job, and their families deserve compensation with the assistance of Frederick MD personal injury Lawyers if the worst should happen. Our improvements in worker safety over the past few decades does not stop here.

 

No one enjoys sunburn, and the fact that skin cancer rates are rising certainly doesn’t help. While outdoor workers and their employers account for many risks, one that is often overlooked is sun damage. This is despite the fact that the sun plays such a dominant role in an outdoor worker’s life. Those who work outdoors would be wise to know the risks, and invest in protective materials and habits (if their jobs do not already provide them), especially as the months warm up.

Risks of sun exposure:

The links between sunburn and skin cancer have been well documented by dermatologists in Washington DC, London UK and around the world. People with fairer skin and previous sunburns are most at risk for skin cancers such as Basal Cell Carcinoma, Squamous Cell carcinoma, and the most dangerous form, Melanoma. However, nobody is immune to these risks and those with darker skin may be less likely to get cancer, but their cases are more likely to prove fatal. Other risks include dehydration and even heat stroke, which can also have catastrophic results.Therefore it is important to protect oneself, especially in professions that frequently take one outdoors.

High-Risk Jobs:

Some of the jobs with high risks for sun exposure include:

• Park ranger
• Outdoor sports (surf/ski/snowboard) instructor
• Lifeguard
• Farmer
• Marine biologist
• Geologist
• Landscaper

Modes of Protection:

If you find yourself working in one of these fields, consult with a dermatologist in Washington DC or your own area about how to stay safe in the sun. Here are some tips that may help you protect yourself.

• Keep your skin covered- You don’t have to wear short clothing to stay cool. Long sleeves and pant legs can help keep your skin from burning while lighter materials like cotton and linens, and dry-wicking exercise fabrics can keep you well ventilated. Hats are also a great way to cover the thinner, more sensitive skin around your face.
• Wear glasses with UV protection- The sun can damage more than your skin. It is important to care for your eyes and use glasses with UV protection on the label. Those drugstore glasses you bought may help you see better, but may not be giving you any real help in the long run. Invest in a quality pair.
• Stay hydrated- We shouldn’t have to tell you the importance of drinking water, but we will just in case.
• Wear sun block- SPF 30 or higher is ideal. Make sure you cover all exposed skin including your back, which is particularly susceptible as it often goes neglected. Water/ sweat resistant sunblock is also best, and should be reapplied every 40 minutes, after which it loses its effect.

Every job has its risks, but an outdoor job can also prove very rewarding. Just remember to keep yourself safe, and consult with a DC dermatologist for more more advice on staying healthy.