Common Workplace Injuries

Traumatic brain and head injuries (TBI) are often under diagnosed due to the fact that the symptoms are typically subtle and uncertain. Injuries to your head and brain are to be taken very seriously and can cause numerous problems including cognitive issues, emotional and behavioral problems, and physical impairment to your entire body and nervous system. Accidents such as forklift crashes, auto accidents, falling equipment and crates, swinging beams and / or unsafe working conditions have caused severe and catastrophic injuries to California workers. Due to the mysteriousness and invisibility of many TBI claims, it is often difficult for the injured worker trying to assert a claim. In many cases, the trauma and onset of problems do not manifest right away; events such as alterations in cerebral blood flow with pressure building within the skull occur over time.

Neck Injuries are typically amongst workers and can result from all sorts of job related activities. Office workers sustain neck injuries from looking at computer screens all day; a manual laborer may strain his/her neck in the performance of a job, or an auto collision or slip and fall injury. Neck injuries can worsen over time, and a lack of treatment may lead to serious health risks and discomfort over time, and even eventual paralysis. Neck injuries have the ability to put large amounts of strain on your entire body and other systems.

Back injuries are common in the workplace. Many jobs require bending, kneeling, stooping, lifting, driving, pushing, pulling, etc. A single movement can change your back and life forever. In addition, repetitive back motion over a long period of time can be even more damaging than a single lifting injury. California workers’ compensation law refers to this as a cumulative trauma injury: the injury is caused by aggregate repetitive movement.

Lower extremities generally refer to a person’s legs, hips, knees, ankles and feet. What that means is that it is the part of your body that bears the weight, helps you lift, bend, pull, climb, and maintains your balance. Lower extremity injuries can be very severe at their outset and in trying to go about your typical life thereafter. Your lower body drastically affects your ability to work as well as function in your daily living activities. Whether you were injured during a bad fall or years of driving a truck, injuries to workers’ lower extremities / legs are common occurrences and you need representation.

Typically referring to the shoulders, these injuries can be extremely painful and truly limit the type of work a person may be capable of in the future. Impingement is one of the more common shoulder injuries resulting in severe pain which occurs when pressure is exerted on the rotator cuff from lifting one’s shoulders. This is typical in workers who often need to use their arms above their shoulders such as construction workers. There are numerous shoulder injury possibilities in the workplace and you may need medical treatment, including surgery and rehabilitation for serious injuries.