La identificación y registro de enfermedades laborales neurológicas en el Sistema Nacional de Salud

Abstract

There are reasons to believe that in Spain, as in other countries, the number of professional occupational diseases in general and neurological disorders in particular is underestimated. Many workers with illness due to their work are attended by Primary Care and Specialist doctors of the National Health Service. Every day patients with neurological disorders which may possibly be related to their occupation go to see Primary Care and Specialist doctors of the Health Service. For the recognition and consequent recording of neurological occupational diseases, it is essential that there be collaboration between the Occupational Risk Prevention Service and the National Health Service, so that lesions occurring at work are brought to light and suitably handled. In this article we describe the neurological occupational disorders, the occupations and agents which may produce them and their recognition as occupational diseases in the current Spanish legal code. We also give details as to the channels for declaration and registration of occupational diseases at the present time, and the way in which the specialist in Neurology can help to make the neurological occupational diseases more evident. Finally, we describe the outbreaks of polyneuropathy due to n-hexane which occurred in Spain in 1998. In the management of these outbreaks it became evident that satisfactory communication between the Primary Care, Specialist Attention, epidemiological vigilance and occupational health services led to suspicion of an 'occupational toxin' in relation to the cases of polyneuropathy within a brief period of time. This also led to the establishment of the relevant investigation and coordination between health and labor authorities, which in turn led to adoption of measures of prevention and control to prevent the occurrence of further cases.