Chronic pain can limit a person's mobility and strength, making it difficult for them to sit, stand, and lift objects in the workplace. Repetitive activities, such as typing, may be especially challenging for those with nonstop pain.
Coping with the pain occupies people's minds and energy and many people commented that their concentration and memory where not as good as they used to be. This affected their ability to do everyday tasks, particularly things that involved reading and learning new skills.
Chronic pain and lost productivity
This type of pain can persist long after an injury has apparently healed. It can also start without a known injury or illness and outlast what is considered a normal healing time. Chronic pain can interfere with your concentration and ability to work.
If you have a sedentary job, your back pain could cause you to slouch for hours on end. Other ways your symptoms can affect you at work include: Decision making: When you are focusing on your pain, or suffer from fatigue because you cannot sleep, your cognitive abilities suffer.
For many workers, complete relief from chronic pain may be impossible. As a result, chronic pain is associated with increased absence, decrements in job performance, concentration problems, physical limits and displays of impatience toward coworkers and customers.
Regardless of its source, chronic pain can disrupt nearly all aspects of someone's life – beyond physical pain, it can impede their ability to work and participate in social and other activities like they used to, impact their relationships and cause feelings of isolation, frustration and anxiety.
Often those who have a chronic pain condition will also have comorbid conditions, which can contribute to fatigue. Not giving your body all the nutrition and hydration it needs to be energized and ready to function will cause deficiencies; without the right fuel, the body will be fatigued.
If you suffer from back pain and it makes unable to work, you may be eligible for Social Security Disability benefits. The Social Security Administration (SSA) offers the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program.
Chronic pain syndrome can force people to retire early or severely limit their daily activities. In many cases, people have pain that is not curable. The Social Security Administration does not consider chronic pain to be a disability and chronic pain syndrome is not listed as an impairment in the Blue Book.
But getting back to work and other activities may actually help you get better. This is because movement keeps your back flexible and the muscles strong, and staying in bed or avoiding activity for more than a day or two can actually make your pain worse.
Pain has a detrimental effect on every aspect of the life of individuals, and produces anxiety and emotional distress, affects the general well-being negatively, inhibits the functional capacity, and inhibit the ability to perform family, social and vocational roles in daily life.
Because pain signals potential harm to the organism, it immediately attracts attention and motivates decisions and action.
Chronic pain presents a significant burden to both the employees and employers. Musculoskeletal disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and back pain can be associated with chronic pain. Both of them imposes a negative impact on the quality of life for you as an employee.
If you are suffering from chronic pain and its psychological effects, it can feel as if there is no end to your pain. And no, you're not going bonkers. Experiencing depression, mood fluctuations, anxiety, altered perceptions and cognition, and emotional instability, are all commonly associated with chronic pain.
Pain Affects Memory and Concentration
It interferes with the memory trace needed to hold information for processing, and long-term storage. This affects not only one's ability to remember, but also to concentrate and focus in the moment.
But when it comes to claiming on insurance benefits held within your superannuation, often known as total and permanent disability (TPD), chronic pain can also be considered as a disability, particularly if it prevents you from returning back to work.
In order to be considered a 'disability,' your back pain must involve, among others, one of the following: Herniated discs. Compressed nerves. Degenerative disc disease.
When a nerve root is compressed, it becomes inflamed. This results in several unpleasant symptoms that may include: Sharp pain in the back, arms, legs or shoulders that may worsen with certain activities, even something as simple as coughing or sneezing. Weakness or loss of reflexes in the arms or legs.
An introduction to back pain
Most people suffer from back pain at some time in their life. Back pain is one of the biggest causes of work absences, accounting for more than 12 million days lost every year.
Continually fighting pain exhausts your body because pain makes it hard to rest completely. Pain can usually be a result of inflammation that takes a toll on your body or an untreated health problem.
The physical and emotional energy you use trying to deal with pain can make you feel fatigued. Pain also may lead to fatigue by causing you to lose sleep or preventing you from really sleeping well.
Persistent pain is very complex and may be caused by a number of factors. It may occur alongside conditions such as arthritis, diabetes or fibromyalgia. It may occur after an injury or trauma to the body has healed. And in some cases the cause is not known.