Lower back pain trends and the cost to employers

lower back pain

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According to the American Medical Association Journal from 2016, there is a case study done for a period of 1996 to 2013, showing that lower back pain, along with neck pain, accounts for the third highest amount of spending on healthcare and treatments. (US Spending on Personal Health Care and Public Health). The amount goes as high as $87.6 billion dollars!

The rising trend of lower back pain within the population is worrying and a big part of that problem is a more sedentary lifestyle that people are having. Working late hours, staying longer at work, sitting for 8 straight hours in a chair and having little time to exercise and stretch all help in building up to this condition – and all this leaves an impact on the company in various ways.

Lower back pain – the increasing trends

Lower back pain trends and the cost to employers

It is no secret that more and more people are interested in working online jobs, as they will give a better career progression chance, and more chance to shift from one position to another for a higher salary. In most cases, those jobs require a constant attention to a PC/laptop screen while sitting in a chair. A dynamic work environment, that requires constant movement, makes those problems more difficult to come by.

Sitting for a long time makes the muscles become “lazy” and weaken over time, and puts the weight on our soft tissues and spine, and that is where the problems start to occur.

In a timespan of 1990 to 2019, the reports of lower back pain worldwide increased by an incredible 50% – from 149 million to 223 million cases! (Epidemiological trends of low back pain at the global, regional, and national levels).

One of the newer case studies also shows that, from the years of 1996 to 2016, the spending on treating lower back pain has reached a whopping $134.5 billion. Since we have already mentioned a case study done form 1996 to 2013 in the beginning of this article, by doing some math, we can see an increase in spending of $46.9 billion. That is more than a 50% increase in three years, than the 17 years before that!

Preventitive exercises are a great way to slow down this rising trend of lower back pain. The Eudaemonio app can offer many variaties of exercises and benefits. The best part of this – the exercises are short and perfectly optimized for an office environment!

Sick leave cost to employers

Lower back pain trends and the cost to employers

Absenteeism costs employers in the United States $225.8 billion annually, or $1,685 per employee, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and this case study from 2015. However, some of the costs are not measurable in dollars directly, and are an indirect problem in many ways.

For example:

-Pain equals less productiviti and focus, so mistakes happen more often
-Employees on short paid leave have to be replaced, others have to stand in and more work has to be done by them, no one likes that
-In some cases, losing an employee to back pain for a longer period of time creates a need to bring in a replacement, making the company pay more money
-Unhappy, untrained and worn out employees provide less quality experience to users of the product
-Users that are not provided with constant quality experience are less likely to bring more revenue

You can also check out or first article on this topic for some more insight.

Benefits of a lower back stretch

lower back pain

A lower back stretch every now and then could be very beneficial for your body. It doesn’t have to take long and can be done next to the working table. A 5 minute exercise once in a while can help reduce the stress on the lower back, the shoulders and the neck that occur due to long-term sitting. This will also help with pain in the hips, if you have ever experienced a thing like that, and you can read all about it here.

That way, you will let your muscles regain their vitality and be ready for the next set of stresses that await them. For those purposes, the Eudaemonio app provides its users with short sets of exercises that suit every work environment and are adaptable to every work schedule.

The Eudaemonio app also uses gamification to boost engagement and a system with leaderboards which is great for increasing team cohesion – but in a healthy way, by building healthy habits, and providing a healthy environment in general.