In European countries musculoskeletal diseases are on top regarding professional morbidity. The cost of these diseases is about 140 million euro annually. In our country musculoskeletal diseases cause an impressive number of days of sick leave, which means negative repercussions on production. For the objectives we outlined a number of 104 observation sheets of patients admitted to the Clinic of Occupational Medicine between 04.2008 and 07.2008. We studied: age, gender, occupation, professional background, complaints and objective signals, determined diagnoses and interpretation of X-rays (26 cases). In 19 cases out of the total of 104 admissions the first diagnosis was some kind of musculoskeletal disease, 3 of these cases were reported as occupational diseases. The exposure time of all hospitalized patients was over 20 years at their job. In our country the number of people with musculoskeletal diseases shows an increasing tendency too, but they are not declared as occupational diseases.
Keywords: musculoskeletal, occupational disease, chronic diseases, absenteism