Back pain in central London office workers is extremely common. Back and neck pain are the commonest pains felt by people who work at desks, followed by arm and upper limb pain and upper limb numbness. More than 80% of people will experience back pain at some point in their lives.
Many of the causes of postural back pain can be helped through the use of osteopathy, exercise and ensuring that your desk is safely set up to work at. This is especially important for people who ‘hotdesk’ and move around a lot, or work on laptops for the majority of the time.
October 6th is the first day of Back Care Awareness week and this year’s theme is Back In the Office – reflecting how common workplace pain can be.
In the latest national survey conducted by Back Care (the National charity dedicated to the prevention of back and neck pain), they found HALF of UK adults were bothered by back pain within the last four weeks, and that back pain is as common in younger people as it is in older people. So you can’t complain that back pain is a ‘sign of getting older’ – because often is it not.
We are doing a series of articles during the Awareness week on things you can do to help avoid back and neck pain in the workplace. Please stay tuned and check back for further information!