How Do Ergonomics Affect Your Body?
Ergonomics is a study that concerns itself with making your work environment fit your physical needs. In regard to computer work, this means making sure that your desk is at the right height, that your monitor is positioned correctly, that your keyboard is in the right location and that your mouse is within easy reach. Of course this is a short list of what makes your work station ergonomic.
Ergonomics and Your Health
Poor ergonomic set ups are notorious for causing neck pain, headaches, tendonitis, shoulder pain and carpal tunnel syndrome.
Working in a poorly thought out workstation stresses your body each day. Eventually this stress accumulates and causes inflammation of joints, tendons and muscles. Inflammation of these structures causes pain, easy fatigue, loss of sensation, weakness and other symptoms.
The danger of these kinds of symptoms is that they can prevent you from working at your job and enjoying activities that you like.
Proper ergonomic set ups require more than getting an ergonomic chair, ergonomic keyboard or ergonomic mouse. If an ergonomic chair is not adjusted to the right height it can cause back pain. If your ergonomic keyboard is in the wrong place you can develop carpal tunnel or tendonitis. If your ergonomic mouse is not within comfortable reach you can develop neck pain, carpal tunnel or tendonitis.
There are people who spend their whole lives studying ergonomics and how to improve them. Improving a workers ergonomic set up prevents injuries and improves work performance.
Several years ago I became certified in Health Ergonomics. This certification process focused specifically on computer work stations. My primary purpose in obtaining this certification was to help my patients get better faster.
Since most of my patients work behind a desk, they tend to have pain that is related to a bad ergonomic set up. I know that chiropractic care is more effective if we can identify and improve ergonomic issues with the patient’s workstations.
