Musculoskeletal Injuries question

[dennairrek]

Hi everyone!
I am a recent graduate from Athletic Therapy program and i also LOOOOOOOOOVE Tree planing! Planting got me through school! I've seen a lot of injuries in my day, from planting and day off... I've also seen a lot return to planting too early, mis treated injuries and poorly diagnosed and handled first aid...
I've made a questionnaire about musculoskeletal injuries and tree planting ((( http://goo.gl/forms/NMRUKi0tGS ))). Please feel free to fill out! Now, I've posted this on a Facebook webpage and I got a lot of harsh comments. I'm not looking to stir the pot, I'm looking for information about tree planting and injuries, how they're handled and all that. You'll see if you fill out the survey! I'm also looking for opinions and discussion!
So!
Do you have a pre season planting regime? What is/are your go-to exercises?
Have you ever been injured while planting, if so, what was it?
If there was someone at camp that you could see for any MSK injury (soreness, biomechanical, acute or chronic) or first aid monitoring, would you see them? What would you expect to pay? Or would you expect the company to provide that service?

[Scooter]

When I send out my first newsletter to my full camp (usually late January) with pre-season notes, I include the following paragraph:

We like to see you in good physical condition. Sitting is the new smoking, so spend some time being active in the weeks leading up to the start of the season. If you’re interested in learning about the “Fit To Plant” program, which has worked out well for many planters in the past, check out the following links:

http://selkirk.ca/treeplanting
http://www.replant.ca/docs/power_eating.pdf
http://www.replant.ca/docs/Wrist_Pamphlet.pdf

Remember that planters who are in “excellent” physical condition going into the start of the season are shown to earn up to 15% more money than if they are in mediocre condition at the start.

Of course, it would probably be smart of me to go into a lot more detail than this quick reminder to "get in shape before it's too late."

As far as your question about who to see in camp, it depends on the issue. For many things that are body-related and first aid-related, the planters all go to one of our six OFA3's. The only drawback with that is that OFA3's aren't trained in a lot of "hidden" problems, ie. the things that aren't obvious first aid issues, so they can't help with everything. There's no charge within camp for this ... the company pays the OFA3's, and they're accessible to everyone.

Re. injuries that we've experienced, for me, a couple of the most notable ones were:
- Twice I've injured a shoulder significantly enough that I switched to left-handed planting for several days, in order to keep working.
- Cut my knee open with a chain saw. It wasn't running at the time, and I wasn't wearing chain saw pants at the time (I was carrying it through a block and tripped on a root and landed on it). That was still a good one even though it wasn't revving ... it tore through a pair of rain pants, light work pants, and long underwear, and my knee bled for three weeks. Still scarred.
- Ripped cornea from a stick (fairly significant, had to wear a patch for several days). A couple other minor eye scrapes. The ripped cornea was significant in that I was actually wearing safety glasses at the time, and the stick got over the top and caught between the glasses and my forehead, so the glasses actually contributed significantly to the injury. A bit of non-comedic irony there.
- Stitches three or four times (and probably twenty other times that I should have had them).
- Leg puncture on the coast that I dressed with my pressure bandage and kept working through. It looked fine at the end of the day, so we just documented it and took photos, and I tried to keep it clean. A month later, it suddenly swelled up and I had to spend an afternoon in the hospital getting some major antibiotics, and a course of daily antibiotics for a month after that.
- Several permanent leg and arm scars of varying notability from generic cuts and abrasions.

I think that's most of the more memorable ones. I've always been an OFA3 (have done the course quite a few times) so I always ended up treating myself.

[dennairrek]

Ah those are some good injuries! You've been lucky!
Over my planting seasons, I've gradually been learning more and more at school. Also learning in the field (on the bench for teams) Dealing with a lot of catastrophic acute injures (As you've listed...) I've also dealt with, i've seen a lot of this at planting, more chronic repetitive overuse injuries either from faulty equipment to poor biomechanical stresses. ONce the word gets out at camp that you are a therapist in training, I literally had a line up of people to see.
Our OFAs are good, some better than others, but everyone comes to me in the end. I am not OFA I'm a first responder (Ontario). I think I must have treated over half my camp throughout the year. We've just had so many tendo cases, low back pain (all caused by different factors), lots of shoulder and elbow injuries and the odd knee and ankle. Just wondering if there is a need. I'm assuming there is a demand in most camps. I think you would be interested to see the results of my survey. There was a lot of WOW as I went through it last week.
My go to preseason and anytime I can is YOGA. Yoga is amazing. It's a total ying to our tree planting yang.
I've had fairly severe tendo, that I still get in the off season. I've also had a broken shoulder that gets tight and sore when I plant. I have chronic SI/Hip pain too.... Screefing causes me intense knee pain.
I self manage by Yoga, because I know and understand my body and it's problems. I get people I trust to do manual therapy on me (after I explain what to do).

[Paladin]

Well this is a pleasant surprise!

I was planning on publishing my thesis survey this week, tomorrow at the earliest! It's for my Undergrad Psychology degree at York University. Mine is less detailed on the injuries, more detailed on other undisclosed stuff (I'm trying to build hype here, do my questionnaire!).

I think treeplanting needs some new research, the last paper published was in 2011, as far as I've found!

dennairrek, I like what you did, and I completed the survey! If you could be kind enough to share my upcoming survey with your harsh group of Facebook friends it would help me out lots. I'm hoping they will like it, and there will be an informed consent form provided, and all that official stuff, will full confidentiality (No naming companies). I want to get enough respondents to achieve a statistically significant sample, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. Over 50, preferably 100 responses.

And Scooter, out of all those horrible things, that eye injury puts me on the edge. Getting a stick in my eye is a top fear, like a stalking bear, but not as big as a bee sting! I also have to wear glasses on the block, otherwise I can't find microsites or see where I plant. If your glasses made it worse...

[dennairrek]

Of course! Send out the link (or send me in private message). I will help you get it out there! I have about 130 respondents from that page alone.
Yes my survey is not formal at all... Oh well.
Maybe we can chat and share information!