Healing Hands for Alaska's Workforce: Physical and occupational therapy prepares workers for the field or office.

• Author: Simonelli, Isaac Stone
• Position: HEALTHCARE SPECIAL SECTION

From extracting oil on the North Slope to hauling nets in Bristol Bay. the physical nature of work in the Last Frontier can be brutal and demanding. Keeping the workforce mobile is the job of occupational medicine. However, occupational health isn't just for laborers doing the heavy lifting; desk jockeys can also suffer wear and tear after long hours at their computers--especially when they're working from home.

Layoffs, furloughs, cut hours, and a whole slew of other environmental, social, and physical factors connected to the pandemic have led to the deconditioning of many people within Alaska's workforce--especially those who were hospitalized by COVID-19. As the pandemic continues to grind communities down and more people look for opportunities to return to work, it's important for future employees and employers to plan that return safely.

'Industrial Athletes'

"Generally speaking, most people just want to be well and healthy and want to be able to provide for their families and want to get back to work," says Doctor of Physical Therapy Neetu Trivedi, who has been working in occupational medicine for about eighteen years and is a regional manager for Select Physical Therapy out of California.

There are many tools and programs now that can help people meet those goals, Trivedi says. Select Physical Therapy uses a biopsychosocial approach that helps practitioners ensure that they are focusing on patient-centered goals and education. By uncovering the psychosocial factors associated with an injury, therapists can unpack the non-physical elements of injury-connected trauma that can be affecting a patient.

"It's not that they're faking it because they don't want to go back to work," Trivedi says. "It's because they just don't have the coping skills. There's a lot of stress factors around their injury that they don't understand. We as therapists can help them understand and kind of get them to gain more control and independence back."

Trivedi says it's not only about helping patients break perception barriers but it'salsogetting employers to understand how they can be better partners in encouraging people to return to work in a safe and healthy way.

"The musculoskeletal impairments that we find are obviously going to be similar whether you're an industrial athlete or a sports athlete playing baseball," Trivedi says. "But all the other factors, the pressures, are different."

Trivedi points out that the patient populations, support systems, and final goals can be significantly different between an athlete and a fisherman or office worker. An athlete might be better prepared and have a stronger support system for quickly healing than an average worker injured on the job, she says.

"You can't really cookie cutter the same treatment plan because the diagnosis is similar. The way that...