Specific Work Related Injury

[RyPat]

I currently have a group of mammogram techs from a local hospital who are seeing me and another trainer to help with some injuries they have from their work. The pain they experience is in their entire arm around their shoulder and scapula. They constantly hold a device that scans the women. It's almost as if they are holding their right arm ( and right arm only) at about mid-abdomen height for 20 minutes at a time. Also the grip they take on this device is somewhat neutral if not internally rotated so their palms face the groud as they perform the scan. The grip creates sharp forearm pain, and I dunno what the technical term is...but like a tetanic muscle contraction similar to toes cramping up constantly after a long time in the pool. Also, they have elbow pain and shoulder/trapezius/rhomboid type pain.


As far as prescription we were looking to do some Myo-fascial release and work on mobility of the scapula and possible strengthening of their upper body. These women are not very familiar to exercise, some of them overweight and I'm sure it exacerbates the problem. But the hospital is looking to eliminate the problems associate through us via pre-hab work (some women were out for 3 weeks at a time due to the injuries).

I was going to use a couple of things from Inside-Out, and was wondering if there was anything else I might consider looking for.

[Bill Hartman]

You'll have to do some scapular strengthening for sure. In the position you describe, the upward rotators are functioning a low levels but strength-endurance demands are high assuming they're doing multiple tests per day. The lack of proximal stability will also mess with the elbow and grip issues.

Make sure you have them work wrist/finger extensors to help with the elbow and forearm pain. Flexors tend to be dominant and imbalance follows.

Bill

[RyPat]

thank you very much

[RobLL]

Be interesting to hear how this works out