Injury Prevention - Special Ed Teachers

Safety Witch

We are experiencing injuries to our special ed staff working with disabled students. Injuries include low back from lifting students on/off toilets, buses, etc. We have had injuries to shoulders, arms, and wrists when a student holding a teacher's hand suddenly drops. Any suggestions on prevention will be appreciated!

Camlan

I think your best bet would be to have a physical therapist come to the school and teach some workshops on proper lifting techniques. I don't think you can prevent these injuries on a case by case basis; you have to educate the teachers and aides on how to move correctly all the time. My company hired a PT to come and talk about repetitive stress injury. She also evaluated all our workstations for proper computer/mouse/monitor setup. She had to come twice to cover all the people here, even though there are only 35 of us. The company then paid for any special devices she recommended, such as back supports, special wrist rests, etc.; not everyone needed special equipment. I don't know how much it cost to hire the PT, but the equipment was less than $200 total.

As for the kids suddenly dropping or falling, these arm and wrist injuries might be harder to prevent, but talk to a physical therapist. Many of them have worked with children with similar behaviors and may be able to offer some advice. Or maybe the children can be transported in some kind of stroller, if they aren't good walkers or tend to be stubborn about changing rooms or activities.

You will also need to make sure that any regular subs are given the same training--my cousin had to have surgery to her shoulder after an incident with a child in Special Ed--she was a substitute aide who was given no warning that the child had a tendancy to pull on people's arms. The school system had to pay for all her treatment--she's still in physical therapy after 6 months.

Don D

Good advice Camlan. I learned from you.