Page 48 - Occupational Health & Safety, February 2017

HAND PROTECTION
Hands-On Approach 1. Spread expo- sures by offloading.
The 90 percent of people who are right- handed are at increased risk to injuring their dominant hand. (Left-handers, who live in a world of right-handed designed tools and equipment, tend to be more bal- anced in their hand usage because they have to be.) Predominantly employing one hand—on tools, opening jars, every- where—puts that hand at greater acute and cumulative risk. And force tends to transfer more toward that same side of the body. (Yes, hand usage can affect cumulative trauma soft-tissue issues in the arms, neck, shoulders, and back.) So consider helping workers offload, using their off-hand more, especially at first in tasks that aren’t as cru- cial (drinking coffee, grasping, etc.). This approach also has the side benefit of wak- ing up awareness.
2. Attention
Attention can tend to flit from one point to another; this lack of direction translates into lowered awareness of potentially acute and cumulative risks. Specifically, hand injuries are especially closely related to in- stances where attention drifts elsewhere. Since people use their hands so much, it’s practically impossible to maintain atten- tion on them continually while using them.
When I think of the incidents I’ve had in my life, almost every one happened when I was focused on something other than what I was doing. In other words, my attention was split. Attention seems to have a range of focus relative to the task at hand, ranging from fuzzy—ever driven somewhere with- out remembering the details of how you got there?—to laser-sharp, such as narrowly avoiding a car swerving into your lane.
Hands-On Approach 2. Practice control- ling attention.
Focusing attention is a skill. Like any other skill, there are ways to develop it— and at any stage in life.
Playing music, practicing martial arts, and meditating all come to mind as some ways of honing concentration and focus. But there are many more. There are six components to attention (Scanning, Se- lecting, Switching, Sustaining, Sequencing, Self-monitoring), of which the last, Self- monitoring, is critical to preventing hand injuries. My experience in transferring hand safety skills is that almost everyone can raise their ability to “check in” their
hands’ placement, level of tension, and strength, and more, at least a few times a day to start—and then build up hand atten- tiveness skills from there.
No question that improving mindful- ness and attention skills can directly lead to a decrease in overall hand injuries and injuries in general. But this entails much more than just reminding people to “Pay attention!” or to “Watch where you place your hands!”
3. Complacency
It seems like the higher the perception of danger we realize, the more focused we be- come. But on the other side, believing our- selves to be “Safe” can lead to a false security that can lull us into assuming and acting as if nothing will go wrong and we won’t become injured. Because people use their hands so much, most of the time without apparent problem, the dangers to our hands can range from the unnoticed to the un- recognizable, and it’s easy to become hand- complacent, taking hand safety for granted.
But we’ve found it doesn’t work long term to just show gruesome pictures or videos of hand injuries. This approach can actually backfire, resulting in workers ad- mitting they are turned off/disengaged by this approach.
Hands-On Approach 3. Develop “differ- ent” awareness.
A key method for developing hand fo- cused attention—and fighting off compla- cency—is to practice looking for potential hand injury potentials before workers begin a task. Realistically, it’s rarely possible for supervisors or professionals to lead workers through this every day; much better for this environmental/task quick assessment to become ingrained in each worker. Experi- ence has shown that once someone gets in- volved working with their hands, attention tends to be on the elements of the task, not on potential hazards. Consciously looking for hazards before beginning a task helps build the skill of directing attention with control, and it also may help them identify potential hazards in order to eliminate or shield themselves from the exposure(s). We’ve found that the prime point to really accomplishing this (rather than workers just pretending to go through the motions or not doing this at all) is to focus on the positive benefits of using hands with great- er control, strength, and flexibility.
Sure, the awareness of danger hones
mental focus (at least for a short time), but it’s difficult to continually live and work “on guard.” But by taking a moment to scan surroundings and equipment and by thinking about what’s around and slightly different (and things always change), we’ve found it’s more likely employees can act in ways that prevent the likelihood of an in- cident. Again, think “different” rather than just “dangerous.” This is another mental skill that everyone can learn to a higher level with the right approach and practice.
We’ve also trained people to look for those things in their work area that can cause hand lacerations, crushes/smashes, and burns because these are the most com- mon hand hazards for many. This can be ex- tremely helpful in avoiding potential risks.
4. Things we don’t know can hurt us
Every Safety message includes taking the time to look for potential environmen- tal and personal risk factors before doing something like reading the label on a pre- scription before taking it or before uncork- ing household chemical products. Without knowledge of the proper precautions, we’re less likely to follow them.
But every worker has already heard all this, and too many still don’t look ahead to consider how to forestall problems in advance. Hearing the same message for the umpteenth time is unlikely to wake up change in attention and actions.
However, what most people don’t know is that there are also dangers not spelled out by labels and warnings. For example, some hand injuries occur from a sudden or un- expected loss of balance. Often our natural reaction is stopping our fall with our hands; this can and does result in damage to wrist, arm, and shoulder. My experience is that elevating practical working balance—a very learnable skillset—can greatly increase hand safety (as well as prevent soft-tissue injuries and slips/trips/falls.) But that’s only half the equation. For instance, did you know you have spots around your body where your balance is worse than others? These points are affected by where we place our feet and how we distribute our weight. Working over one of what we call “Points Of Weakness” (adapted from the “throw- ing” martial arts such as jujitsu) can eas- ily lead to a huge loss of balance, and then things can go very wrong very quickly.
Hands-On Approach 4. Boost practical working balance.
44 Occupational Health & Safety | FEBRUARY 2017
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