Recognizing the Early Signs of a Repetitive Motion Injury

By Your Health Magazine

Your Health Magazine

. http://yourhealthmagazine.net

More Pain Management & Rehabilitation Articles

Recognizing the Early Signs of a Repetitive Motion Injury

Don’t let a repetitive motion injury go unnoticed! Repetitive motion injuries are one of the most common (and most overlooked) types of workplace injuries.

Instead of occurring immediately after a single incident, they occur over time. Tiny amounts of damage occur each day that add up to serious injury over weeks, months and years.

By the time most workers realize something is wrong, their condition has progressed.

Fortunately, repetitive motion injuries are often preventable. By catching them early, serious damage can be avoided.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

• What Is a Repetitive Motion Injury?
• Identifying Early Symptoms of Injury
• Why Workers Comp Claims Are Denied for RSIs
• How To Strengthen a Workers Comp Appeal
• Action To Take If You Notice Symptoms

What Is a Repetitive Motion Injury?

Repetitive motion injuries are injuries to the muscles, tendons, nerves or joints caused by repeated movements.

Here’s an example…

Say you twist your wrist a tiny bit. It doesn’t hurt at first, but over time inflammation and damage occurs. Now do that 50 times an hour for several hours straight. Then repeat that every day for years.

Soon enough the body is going to start screaming with aches, pain and serious damage.

RSIs (aka repetitive strain injuries) include carpal tunnel syndrome, tendonitis, bursitis, rotator cuff injuries and trigger finger.

Any job where workers perform repetitive tasks is at risk. Office employees, warehouse workers, factory employees and hairdressers are just a few professions who deal with RSIs.

The stats back this up as well. The AFL-CIO’s 2025 report shows musculoskeletal disorders make up roughly 28% of all “private industry” serious job injuries. RSIs fall into that category.

When a workers comp appeal is needed after a denied claim, having a workers compensation attorney in Fresno can be crucial. Timely reporting and understanding legal rights are huge when it comes to RSIs.

Since there isn’t an accident where injuries occur suddenly, workers compensation insurance companies often deny these claims. A skilled attorney will know how to combat those denial reasons.

Spotting Early Symptoms of Injury

Dealing with an RSI before makes it easy to understand how simple they are to miss.

The body doesn’t suddenly become crippled by pain. More often than not, workers ignore the first few symptoms because “it happens all the time.” Little do they know that pain is the body’s way of telling them to slow down.

Keep an eye out for these symptoms:

• Tingling or numbness in the hands, fingers or wrists during or recently after performing job tasks.

• Pain that doesn’t go away. An ache in the wrist, back or neck that gets worse when working and better when resting.

• Stiffness. Trouble moving around a joint after sitting or waking up.

• Weakness. Suddenly dropping things or being unable to grip items that normally wouldn’t be a problem.

• Swelling. Some inflammation around joints or tendons that can be felt but may be hard to see.

Pretty much any of these can show up for almost any type of repetitive motion injury. Here’s the thing most people don’t realize…

The body doesn’t typically experience all these symptoms at once. Little by little the damage adds up. It may start with some tingling, then a little stiffness when reaching for stuff. By the time performing job duties without pain becomes impossible, it’s too late.

Why Workers Comp Claims Are Denied

As mentioned above, repetitive motion injuries are covered by workers compensation insurance.

The problem is, these claims get denied far too often.

Why?

Because RSIs don’t happen like other work injuries. There’s no “incident” that causes the damage.

When a twisted ankle happens after a fall, the injury gets reported to the employer that same day. There may even be a coworker who witnessed it.

But with RSIs, there’s no inciting event. The injury occurred over weeks, maybe even years. There’s no paperwork to file and no one can “prove” it happened at work.

Insurance companies and employers know this. They know RSI claims are difficult to prove which is why they deny them.

Take a look at this study from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. During 2023 and 2024 there were 946,290 DART cases related to overexertion and repetitive motion.

DART stands for “Days Away from work, Job Restriction or Transfer.” Injuries that were serious enough to remove workers from their regular job tasks.

That’s nearly a million incidents that should be covered by workers comp. But a huge chunk of those were denied upon initial submission.

Here are some common reasons claims are denied:

• Reporting injuries too late
• Missing medical documentation
• Employer disputes injury is work-related
• Insufficient evidence the daily job tasks caused the injury

That’s why from day one it’s critical to document everything.

How To Strengthen a Workers Comp Appeal

Just because a claim is denied doesn’t mean it’s over.

Workers have the ability to appeal, and many denied claims are overturned on appeal.

But… preparation is everything.

Walking into an appeal with no solid evidence is a one-way ticket to continued denial.

Here are some things that give the best chance:

• Report the injury as soon as symptoms start. Even if the pain seems like it will go away.

• Seek medical treatment as soon as possible. A doctor’s opinion linking symptoms to daily job tasks is key.

• Document everything. Write down when symptoms start during the day. What tasks cause them. How they affect the ability to do the job.

• Comply with all treatment plans. The last thing insurance companies want is for injured workers to follow through with doctor’s orders. Give them reasons to deny and they will.

An experienced attorney will be able to review a denied claim and outline exactly what evidence is needed to win an appeal. They can walk through the process step by step.

What To Do After Noticing Symptoms

Pay attention to the body! If any of the symptoms mentioned above start showing up, don’t ignore them.

The longer the wait, the more damage is done… to both the body and any potential claim.

Notify a supervisor about the symptoms immediately. It may not seem like a big deal now, but don’t skip this step.

Next, go see a doctor who specializes in workplace injuries and be detailed when describing daily job duties and what causes the symptoms to flare up.

Finally, write down everything. Dates pain is experienced, what’s happening on the job when it occurs and conversations with supervisors. All of this information helps build a case should a claim need to be filed or a denial appealed.

Claims that are denied the first time can often be overturned with appeals. Having all the proper documentation will strengthen the case.

Conclusion

Taking care of the body is the most important thing. But when it comes to repetitive motion injuries, they can be difficult to identify right away.

Simple things like tingling in the fingers and slight pain can progress to injuries that impact the ability to do the job.

Here’s the recap:

• Repetitive motion injuries happen over long periods of time
• They’re caused by doing the same motions and tasks every day
• Symptoms can include tingling, pain, stiffness and weakness
• Workers comp denial rates for RSIs are high
• Successful appeals have solid evidence from day one of reporting the injury
• Early identification of symptoms can help prevent the damage from getting worse

Don’t wait for the pain to become unbearable before doing something about it.