Statistics indicate that as many as 30% of all injuries at work are a result of invisible injuries.
Sometimes when you are injured while working, symptoms are obvious and readily apparent, such as a burn injury or a broken leg, the effects of your injury are visible and undeniable. Unfortunately, other types of injuries aren’t always apparent.
Some injuries take months or even years to surface, and if you haven’t created a chain of causation to the workplace, it can make it extremely difficult to claim workers’ compensation. Invisible injuries are those types of injuries that might not show at the time, but can come back to haunt you in a big way.
What Are the Most Common Types of Invisible Injuries?
Although not visible to others, there are chronic conditions that can result from work-related activities. Not felt by anyone but the worker, they can lead to limitations and forever impact your life.
Workplace exposure is one such invisible injury that often takes years to surface. Since you are required to make your employer know of an accident that leads to an injury within a specific time frame, invisible injuries come with an increased difficulty to create a workers’ compensation claim for those who suffer them.
Invisible Physical Injuries
Invisible physical injuries are things like soft tissue injuries that result in tendon and muscle strains and tears that get exceedingly worse over time. Usually called “repetitive injuries,” they are ubiquitous in the workplace.
Statistics indicate that as many as 30% of all injuries at work are a result of invisible injuries. Invisible injuries typically involve the shoulders, back, knees, neck and other major joints and they lead to weakness, and, in extreme cases, disability.
Mental and Cognitive Impairment
A head injury is an example of cognitive or mental impairment. Brain trauma can result from any sudden blow to the head, but the symptoms of a traumatic brain injury are often not diagnosed or noticed until later, and by the time they are diagnosed, the damage is done. Also, traumatic events that can happen in the workplace like violence or abuse can forever alter someone’s emotional stability and lead to the inability to function in the workplace.
Pre-Existing Conditions
Things like heart disease, high blood pressure, or past injuries, can all be made worse by the conditions that someone endures while they are at work. If your health starts to suddenly decline as a result of the situations and environments to which you are exposed at work, then, although it results from a pre-existing condition, that does not mean that you are not eligible to collect.
St. Louis Workers Compensation Lawyer
When someone is hurt at work by a big accident where bones are broken, or an ambulance is called, it is hard for anyone to say that it isn’t a work-related injury. But, invisible work injuries are different, although no less incapacitating.
If you are having a hard time getting the coverage you need for your invisible work injury, it is critical to contact a St. Louis workers’ compensation lawyer to receive all of that to which what you are entitled.