Guest post by Houman Danesh, MD, assistant professor of anesthesiology, at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
What is Ergonomics?
Ergonomics is the adaptation of an environment to increase efficiency. Efficiency can be defined in many areas such as: decreasing the amount of energy required to do a certain movement, decreasing stress on joints, making tasks easier to do and even improving performance by using colors and ambiance.
How is Ergonomics related to pain?
The way a person sits at work can dramatically affect the stress placed on wrists, back, knees, feet, shoulders hips and even the neck. Imagine holding your arm up all day to ask a question in class. By then end of the day your arm will hurt. Sitting at your desk for a long time, can produce similar fatigue situations equivalent to holding your arm up all day, on the muscles of your neck, back, shoulder, hips, knees, etc.
What changes can I make at work to prevent injury?
Sitting in an ergonomically sound position, will lessen the load on muscles and joints and help prevent injuries. To get into an ergonomically sound position, simply follow the rules of 90.
- Your feet should be flat on the floor, creating a 90 degree angle at your ankle.
- Your knees and hips should be at approximately 90 degrees as well, so adjust your seat height accordingly.
- Your elbows and wrist should be at 90 degrees, so consider placing the keyboard on a roll out drawer if you can not attain this with seat height.
- Also use a lumbar support to help support the small of your back
- Use headsets rather than cradling the phone against your shoulder to keep your neck at 90 degrees.
- Keep the monitor of your computer screen at or below eye level to you’re your neck at 90 degrees and to reduce strain on your neck.