But according to Michelle Gruver, rehabilitation engineer at Purdue University's Breaking New Ground Resource Center, farmers can make adjustments that will protect their backs on the job. Gruver said most back impairments develop slowly over time, and people often don't know what caused them.
Severity ranges from acute, which is severe but short lived, to chronic, long-lasting pain.
She defines a back impairment as any injury, disease or problem that causes pain to or limits normal use of the back. It cites work-related back injuries as the nation's No. 1 occupational hazard, causing 100 million lost days of work per year. Gruver said 48 percent of worker compensation claims filed by agricultural workers in 1985 and 1986 related to back injury. Dennis Herr of Kendallville, Ind., is a case in point. Well, that's true.