A health care system already strained by Covid-19 has also been dealing with another challenge – injuries caused by increased pivoting in the workplace. Since March 2020, over five million US businesspeople have been treated for pivoting-related muscle and tissue trauma.
“Before the Covid pandemic most people went through their entire careers and pivoted maybe once or twice,” says Dr. Louise Frossman, of Munsing College in Idaho. “Today it can be multiple times a week!”
An expert on workplace injuries – especially for her groundbreaking treatment of feet held to the fire – Frossman says the human body is not built for continual pivoting. “Turning on a dime or jumping through hoops can happen with minimal damage,” she says. “But pivoting requires use of the commacial muscles, one of the least resilient.”
She acknowledges that more pivoting is necessary during these ever-changing times, but believes it should be limited.
“In 2016 Congress passed legislation preventing companies from handing employees their heads on a plate,” she says. “We need something similar that will limit pivoting to three or four times a year.”
Such a law might have prevented Des Moines bank regulator James Bohannon from being unable to work the past three months, due to an over stretched right dandonium.
“Of course I can understand the need to pivot,” he says. “But when you have to do it every few hours, even before your first cup of coffee, that’s a lot of wear and tear.”
Having undergone extensive therapy, Bohannon expects to return to the bank sometime in March. His activity will be limited, however, to simple tasks like pushing envelopes.
