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An injury that develops over time from doing the same work repeatedly may qualify for workers’ compensation.

Can I Get Workers’ Compensation for a Repetitive Motion Injury?

When most people think about workers’ compensation, they likely consider catastrophic accidents, like a forklift backing over a warehouse worker’s foot, a construction worker falling from scaffolding or a machinist losing a limb. While these type of injuries are certainly covered under the workers’ compensation system, they are not the only type of claim that workers’ compensation was designed to address. Other types of injuries can be just as devastating and difficult to overcome — such as repetitive motion injuries — and are also covered under the California workers’ compensation system.

A repetitive motion injury, which may also be called a repetitive strain injury, is a type of injury or chronic pain that can develop in the muscles, nerves or tendons as a result of repeating certain movements frequently over a period of time. Picture a worker in a factory whose job it is to tighten bolts on a particular item. This worker stands in place for 8 hours a day, tightening the same bolts on the same item, 40 hours per week. Over time, that worker’s wrists and other joints could be impacted by these repetitive motions that are being done over and over against for 40 hours a week.

While that may be a somewhat extreme example, consider a more commonplace one — an office worker who is required to use a computer every day for 8 hours a day. Over time, resting your wrists on the computer or mouse in a certain way can lead to a condition known as carpal tunnel syndrome, a condition that causes numbness and tingling in the hand and arm due to a pinched wrist nerve. This has become incredibly common as most workplaces rely heavily on computers for many of their daily tasks.

Other types of repetitive motion injuries may include tendinosis, which is the degeneration of a tendon’s collagen because of chronic overuse, or cubital tunnel syndrome, which can develop because of pressure on the unlar nerve, which resides in the section of the elbow commonly called the “funny bone.” These conditions can arise from any type of job where an employee has to perform the same type of job function repeatedly, such as a baker kneading bread over and over again.

Repetitive motion injuries are covered under the California workers’ compensation system as long as they are directly related to your occupation. Even though they occur over time, as long as a repetitive motion injury is related to your job duty — in other words, it happened because of what you are required to do at work — it will likely be covered under workers’ compensation.

If you believe that you have a repetitive motion injury, you should report your injury to your employer as soon as possible. You should then go to a doctor to seek treatment for that injury. Finally, seek out a skilled workers’ compensation attorney to help protect your right to workers’ compensation benefits. Because repetitive motion injuries happen over time, instead of in one accident, they can be harder to prove than other types of workers’ compensation claims. An experienced California workers’ compensation attorney will know how to handle your claim to improve your chances of getting benefits for your claim.

At PLBH, our attorneys at skilled at representing clients who have been hurt on the job in workers’ compensation claims. Contact us today at (800) 435-7542 or info@plblaw.com to schedule a free consultation today.