Return to Work Matters - The power of partnerships

What's the opposite of employee-centred case management?

Dr Mary Wyatt and Tom Barton | Rehab is about supporting the employee, leading them in a positive direction, setting goals, engaging, and return to work. Not billable hours.
Judy believed she was a tough person who could deal with whatever life brought her. On injuring her shoulder she became increasingly despondent and isolated, challenged by pain that would not go away and a disjointed merry- go-round system. Effective rehab, the cornerstone of case management, was missing. Judy’s story Judy* was a cook in an aged care facility when she first injured her shoulder cleaning kitchen windows. more >>

Case Study: Re-training for a better future

Stefanie Garber | Encouraging an injured worker to retrain and undertake self-management strategies could save millions in compensation costs.
Case Study Ms L moved to Australia over twenty years ago, hoping to find better opportunities for herself and her young daughter. She had worked in office administration in Belgium but her poor English skills limited her options in country Victoria. She worked in a range of unskilled fields before finding employment at a warehouse in 1996. The work she undertook was physically demanding. more >>

Recorded webinar: Proactive versus reactive injury management

Cheryl Griffiths | Dealing with challenging cases is complex and it's always useful to gain insights from people who have been down this path and faced the issues involved. Dr Paul Pers has an enormous amount of experience and is going to talk to about the benefits of takin
Dealing with challenging cases is complex and it's always useful to gain insights from people who have been down this path and faced the issues involved. Dr Paul Pers has an enormous amount of experience and is going to talk to about the benefits of taking a proactive approach towards injury management. This webinar will cover topics such as: Are the worker, medical, rehabilitation provider and employer perceptions on the nature of the injury aligned? Who is coordinating the care? Is the workplace accommodating and responsive? Return to work can be a medical emergency. more >>

Left behind in the RTW journey - Part 2

Dr Mary Wyatt | Long term claimants commonly describe a system that is frustrating, does not consider their needs, and misses out on treating them as an individual.
Take Home Messages: Returning people to work after they have been off work for significant periods poses major challenges and success is uncommon. Approaches that positively engage the worker, deal with the worker in a respectful manner, avoid bureaucratic inefficiencies, and work in partnership are required to improve the chance of success. Each of these is simple in its own right, but requires consistency of approach, time to spend with the worker, and an approach that supports timely actions. more >>

Mental disorders and non-communicable diseases should be addressed together

Non-communicable diseases (NCD) and mental disorders each constitute a huge portion of the worldwide health care burden, and often occur together, so they should be addressed together. These are the conclusions of the third article in a series published in PLOS Medicine that provides a global perspective on integrating mental health. Victoria Ngo from the RAND Corporation in California and international colleagues say that collaborative care models, where NCD care and mental health care are integrated and provided in the primary care setting, are effective for patients, strengthen health care service systems, and reduce costs.

Clinically depressed patients phrase personal goals in less specific terms

People suffering from clinical depression express personal goals and reasons for their attainment or failure in less specific terms than people without the disorder. This lack of specificity in representing personal goals may be partially responsible for the motivational deficits seen in these patients, according to research published May 15 in the open access journal PLOS ONE. Compared to non-depressed control participants, depressed individuals' goals tended to be less specific and more abstract, for example 'to be happy', rather than 'to improve my time running the local 10 km race'. The authors suggest that these results may help to improve psychotherapeutic approaches used to treat depression.

Austerity kills

"One need not be an economic ideologue...to recognize that the price of austerity can be calculated in human lives," say David Stuckler, a senior research leader in sociology at Oxford, and Sanjay Basu, an assistant professor of medicine and an epidemiologist in the Prevention Research Center at Stanford. Their article in the New York Times recounts their recent research stating the link between austerity in a time of recession, and increased suicide rates. "We are not exonerating poor policy decisions of the past or calling for universal debt forgiveness. It’s up to policy makers in America and Europe to figure out the right mix of fiscal and monetary policy. What we have found is that austerity — severe, immediate, indiscriminate cuts to social and health spending — is not only self-defeating, but fatal."

More sleep may decrease the risk of suicide in people with insomnia

A new study found a relationship between sleep duration and suicidal thoughts in people with insomnia. Results show that every one-hour increase in sleep duration was associated with a 72 percent decrease in the likelihood of moderate or high suicide risk, in comparison with low risk. Data were adjusted for age, gender, race/ethnicity, education and age of onset of sleep difficulties. “We were surprised by the strength of the association between sleep duration and suicide risk,” said primary author Linden Oliver, MA, clinical research coordinator for the University of Pennsylvania Behavioral Sleep Medicine Research Program in Philadelphia, Pa. “A 72 percent decrease in the likelihood of moderate or high suicide risk with a one-hour increase in sleep is interesting given the small sample size. These results further highlight the importance of obtaining adequate amounts of sleep."

Job stress and unhealthy lifestyle increase risk of coronary artery disease compared with stress and healthy lifestyle

People with job stress and an unhealthy lifestyle are at higher risk of coronary artery disease than people who have job stress but lead healthy lifestyles, found a study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). Of the 102,128 total participants, 15,986 (16%) reported job stress. "The risk of coronary artery disease was highest among participants who reported job strain and an unhealthy lifestyle; those with job strain and a healthy lifestyle had about half the rate of this disease," writes Dr. Mika Kivimäki, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London (UCL), London, United Kingdom. "In addition to stress counselling, clinicians might consider paying closer attention to lifestyle risk factors in patients who report job strain," the authors conclude.

Depression linked to stroke risk

Middle-aged women who have depression are almost twice as likely to have a stroke as women the same age who are not depressed, according to new research from The University of Queensland. The study, led by Dr Caroline Jackson from UQ's School of Population Health, found that even after accounting for other stroke risk factors such as high blood pressure and diabetes, middle-aged women who were depressed were 1.9 times more likely to have a stroke than women without depression. Dr Jackson said the findings highlight the serious impact poor mental health can have on physical health. “Current guidelines for stroke prevention tend to overlook the potential role of depression,” she said.