While it goes without saying that no employer relishes the thought of having one of his employees on L and I due to a work injury, having that same work injury blossom into a long-term, chronic disability is enough to make any boss lose his lunch.

And while most work injuries do not turn into chronic disabilities, the fact is, some do. As employers, or employees for that matter, is there any way we can see this coming? Are there any risk factors to watch for, and if so, are there ways we can reduce these risks?

These are great questions, and are some that a recent study in the medical journal Spine set out to answer. Judith Turner, Ph.D., of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine, lead the research that revealed several key risk factors that stacked the odds against an injured worker’s ability to return to work a full year later.

Turner and her colleagues’ award-winning study interviewed 1,885 back-injured workers, for the prospective population-based cohort study, three weeks after an injury claim was filed.

The No. 1 predictor of a worker still being disabled after one year was a high initial score on a specialized disability questionnaire known as the Roland-Morris (18-24 points out of a possible 24). Those falling in this highest category were 26 times more likely to have chronic disability one year later.

Other strong factors were identified as well — perhaps none more interesting, from my point of view though, than the type of health care provider sought first following the back injury. Turner found that workers who began their care with a chiropractor had a distinct reduction of odds for chronic disability. This finding surprised the researchers, an orthopedic news website explained. They were expecting, as most might, that occupational medicine physicians would be the clear leaders. “In fact, if anything,” Turner said, “[the occupational medicine physicians] had somewhat worse outcomes.”

Those outcomes according to the study, found 21 percent of back-injured workers who sought care with an occupational medicine physician first found themselves to be chronically disabled after one year. Primary care physicians scored at 12 percent. But of those seeking a chiropractor first for their work-related back injury, only 5 percent were disabled at the one year mark.

“That at least raises the possibility,” Turner said, “that chiropractic care was more effective in improving pain and disability or promoting return to work.”

Yet another reason to visit your neighborhood chiropractor following a work-injury … first.

For the rest of this article, which details more of the chronic disability risk factors Turner’s research identified, visit our website www.abetterbackbone.com and click on the “Read Dr. Lamar’s Spinal Column” banner on the home page.

Dr. Thomas R. Lamar is a chiropractor at Anchor Chiropractic in the Health Services Center and holds a postgraduate certification as a chiropractic extremities practitioner. He invites you to visit his Web site, www.AbetterBackbone.Com, to find this article, along with many more, to help explain today’s chiropractic. He can be reached at (360) 297-8111.