The old adage says our body is a temple and we need to take care of it. There are so many health regimens these days and all of them promise a better and healthier body for all of us. Exercise has finally become a thing for so many people. Research on food helped us pinpoint the healthier options and design our own diet. We can now even gauge the extent of our health through various apps on the net. In fact, we can even do monitoring of our body condition through most of these apps. Technology has made this rather easy.

Depending on the nature of the job, our body goes through stress. Although it is understandable, sometimes it can be taxing for your body. It can lead to many ailments and diseases later on. Thankfully, the government has a program to protect the employees. The disability benefits help while recovering and hopefully alleviate their current living conditions. It might not be perfect and there are certain cases when the benefits were abused, but we cannot deny the fact that it helped so many people.

You may ask what kind of diseases is covered by the benefits. It is important to note that these diseases should have been contacted in the workplace while in the line of duty. It may also be that you already have a preexisting condition and your working conditions worsened your situation. However, there are some cases wherein that you may be out of the office and you were injured. There are also cases wherein the person did not notice that they already contacted the disease and it just worsened overtime. Some of these cases are hard to prove and you need a doctor for these medical claims. You also need to prove that you have contacted it or worsened in the workplace.

It may be easier to prove your work-related injuries or diseases if it is physical. For example, you hurt your arm or it was cut off during work. It is physically evident that this has been caused by the workplace. Of course, there needs to be an investigation first but usually this is still covered by the benefits. However, if it was the employee’s fault that he or she was injured i.e. he or she was drunk while working or did not follow the company protocol, and then the employee might be held liable instead.

Doing the same job over and over again can also result to injury. It might improve your mastery of the work, but the stress to your body is evident. Imagine packing goods for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week in the same position. It might sound easy but in the long run, it can make you quite uncomfortable. You are also more prone to back pain and other bone diseases if you do the same job over and over again. That is why for some companies that rotate the job responsibilities of their employees so that these type of injuries might be lessened. It even boosts the employees’ morale because they feel like they are not doing the same job over and over again. Variety is not a bad thing in the office.

Some diseases also develop because of the workplace overtime. This is especially evident if the workers are exposed to harsh living conditions like mining and factory work. Many of their employees are also exposed to harmful chemicals. Some develop cancer and other diseases because their immune system is weakened. For law enforcers and people who are considered as first responders to situations, they are covered by this because some of their diseases could be caused by the mental stress as well as the physical.

Pre-existing ailments of an employee is something that should be disclosed before being hired as work as this could affect their performance. However, there are also cases wherein that these conditions were worsened by working yur job. For example, you already have arthritis but your work requires you to do physical jobs. This can be covered by disability benefit as long as it is backed up by medical checkup,

One of the more difficult cases to prove is the psychological effect of the work to the employee. Any kind of work is stressful but there are certain cases wherein the stress can be too much for the employee to handle. This results ot their incapacitation or psychological disorders like depression and anxiety. This is difficult to prove because aside from medical check-up, you might need a psychologist or psychiatrist to back up the claims. Usually, there is going to be a psychological evaluation which includes a battery of tests to prove that your job contributed to your psychological breakdown. Cases of posttraumatic stress disorder ae usually covered in employees with very stressful work environments and first hand trauma can be experienced. This includes paramedics, policemen and army veterans.

Death due to the working environment is also covered by these benefits. The family usually receives compensation from the government or the employees to help them especially if the one who died is the provider of the family. In some cases, they can also receive pension every month depending on the program they are in.

As a human being, it is our nature to keep ourselves safe from harm. However, there is always a risk while living in this world. Countless of diseases spread everyday and injuries can happen anytime. This is something we do not wish to happen but it is true. Hospitalization is also very expensive nowadays and not everyone can afford them which is very unfortunate. We need to protect ourselves for our and our family’s peace of mind. The government has programs in place to alleviate our situation if these harsh times do come. As employees, we should also be aware of our rights and the benefits that we can get from the government. At the same time, it is also our duty and responsibility to make sure that we do not abuse these programs so that others can benefit from it as well.