Getting to the Root of Your Pain: How an MRI Can Help Diagnose Musculoskeletal Conditions

What Are Musculoskeletal Disorders?

Musculoskeletal disorders, or MSDs, are conditions that impact the musculoskeletal system. The musculoskeletal system is comprised of bones, ligaments, tendons, and muscles. The musculoskeletal system allows the human body to move. People who suffer from MSDs usually experience persistent pain that limits their mobility and dexterity. Common MSDs include:

• Tendonitis
• Carpal tunnel syndrome
• Ligament sprain
• Epicondylitis
• Thoracic outlet compression
• Mechanical back syndrome
• And many more

MSDs are the most common workplace injury. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 30 percent of worker’s compensation costs derive from MSDs. More often than not, people develop MSDs not from a single traumatic incident, but from repeated stressors put on their bodies. Fittingly, other common names for this type of injury are “repetitive stress injury,” “overuse injury,” and “repetitive motion injury.” Anyone who has ever felt soreness after repeating the same task has some concept of an MSD, though the injuries we will explore in this article are far more severe than simple soreness.

How Do People Get Musculoskeletal Disorders

People often experience fatigue from their work tasks. Your neck might feel stiff after staring down all day, or you might feel a pain in your back from carrying bulky objects for many hours. But there’s a difference between normal fatigue and MSDs. MSDs develop when the body doesn’t have the time to recover before you apply more strain, compounding the pain. Too much persistent pressure eventually creates a musculoskeletal imbalance. People either experience these stress factors from activities forced upon them by their employers, which we call work-related risk factors, or from activities they decide to do themselves, which we call individual-related risk factors.

Work-Related Risk Factors

When an employee is made to complete tasks at work that exceed their body’s capabilities, they put their musculoskeletal system in danger. We call those tasks work-related risk factors. Nobody should ever be made to feel unsafe at work. Unfortunately, in this hyper-competitive job market, employers very often push workers far more than they should. We can break down work-related risk factors into three primary categories:

• High task repetition—People can form MSDs from repetitive tasks. Many jobs are repetitive. Think about the common image of assembly line workers screwing in bolts again and again throughout an entire day. Doing those same tasks all the time puts a strain on a person’s body. These high task repetitions over time may lead to an MSD.
  
  
• Forceful exertion—Whereas some jobs require the repetition of tasks that, when taken together, put too much strain on the body, some jobs may ask a person to complete one single task that creates too much tension. Even lifting a heavy manhole once, for example, may be too much for a person’s back and may permanently damage their spine. That is an example of forceful exertion.
  
  
• Repetitive or sustained awkward postures—Joints are not meant to remain in an awkward position for too long. If your job asks you to stand or sit in an awkward position all day, and you feel pain as a result, you may have been asked to maintain a repetitive or sustained awkward posture.

These conditions heighten the risk of getting an MSD. But factors that increase someone’s likelihood of developing MSDs are not just specific to what a boss asks you to do. The ways individuals choose to approach work and how they enjoy their time off can also contribute to the development of MSDs.