Getting back to work can ease your backache

Most of those hit by such conditions would recover more quickly at work than at home, researchers argue.

The company and support of colleagues, plus a sense of achievement, boosts self-esteem and helps recovery, the Work Foundation concluded.

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Michelle Mahdon, a researcher at the charity, which aims to improve the quality and economics of working life, said work could be "both the cause and cure" of many musculoskeletal problems.

She added: "It may aggravate symptoms of musculoskeletal disorders but evidence is amassing that, with the right support arrangements, work can also be part of the recovery.

"What urgently needs to change is the attitude of many GPs and employers that a musculoskeletal disease sufferer must be 100 per cent well before any return to work can be contemplated.

"Too many see only incapacity rather than capacity."

Musculoskeletal disorders, a term which covers backache and rheumatoid arthritis, as well as damaged joints and tendons, are said to cause 9.5million lost working days annually and cost £7.4billion a year in health care, lost productivity and benefits.

The charity's Fit for Work? report argues that early diagnosis and emphasis on keeping sufferers in work when possible are likely to boost national productivity and help reduce the 2.6million people claiming incapacity benefit.

"There is overwhelming evidence that worklessness is, itself, bad for health," it says.

The researchers, who analysed other studies and interviewed medical experts, stressed the changes needed to allow employees to work through their illness.

They urged GPs and employers to look out for symptoms of muscular problems, with early diagnosis and treatment often speeding recovery.

Flexible hours, working from home, changing workplace duties and suitable desks and chairs would also have an impact.

Jane Spence, of the charity Arthritis Care, said: "Many people with musculoskeletal disorders could be at work now if bosses were more creative and can-do in making it happen."

But TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "Although for some lower back conditions there is evidence that continued activity can be a useful part of rehabilitation, there is no such evidence for other musculoskeletal disorders.

"In most cases, continuing the activity that caused the injury will just make things worse."

He added: "This advice is at best simplistic - and at worst dangerous."