One common source of injury in the workplace is repetitive motions. Repetitive hand motions, which are common in many manufacturing jobs, can lead to stress injuries, such as carpal tunnel syndrome and tendonitis. The way that companies attempt to prevent these injuries from occurring is to have experts make judgments based on a visual inspection of hand motions.
However, this method can be very subjective, and there is a lot of room for improvement. A professor of industrial systems of engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison believes he has a much better solution for preventing repetitive stress injuries.
The professor’s idea is to use cameras to film the hand motions that workers are required to do and then to use a computer to analyze which motions are most likely to lead to problems. In the future, he hopes that this can be accomplished using a smart phone, which can upload videos to a cloud system that will provide information about reducing potential injuries instantly and with more precision than is currently possible.
If someone has been harmed at or due to their job, workers’ compensation benefits exist to ensure that the individual will be taken care of financially and medically. Benefits can provide a percentage of lost wages and will cover most or all of someone’s medical expenses, including visits to the doctor, treatments and medications. If someone has been injured in such a way that they are temporarily or permanently disabled, settlements may be available through workers’ compensation. A lawyer could let an individual know if they may be covered by workers’ compensation and what is required to file for benefits.