Ergonomic Issues and Products Blog

Archive for July, 2009

From a postural standpoint, one of the worst things that we can do to our bodies is slouch while we sit. Sitting seems like such an innocent, non-injurious activity. This is far from the case.

I have been practicing chiropractic in San Diego for the last 15 years and what I have seen in practice regarding back injuries would be surprising to most people in non-medical careers. The average person that I speak with regarding back pain and injuries is of the mind set that low back pain is the result of jobs that require heavy lifting or contact sports, golfing or car accidents.

In reality, it is the constant stress and strain of postural stress that is the biggest burden on our spines. The postural stress of sitting for hours on end in a task chair in front of a computer can become overwhelming. When our bodies are exposed to a specific stress over a long period of time, the effects that the stress places on our bodies has a cumulative effect. Over the course of months or years that cumulative stress expresses itself as pain, stiffness or more serious symptoms.

When I am explaining the ongoing cumulative effects of postural stress to my chiropractic patients I like to use the classic example of the Chinese water torture. Those first couple hundred drops of water on the forehead aren’t bothersome – but a few hundred drops more will make you truly miserable. The same process happens to your low back as the minutes, hours, days, months and years pass with you sitting in a computer chair.

There is a chart floating around that I have come across in several texts that relates your bodies posture with the amount of stress that each particular posture generates on the discs in the lower back. As the chart demonstrates, the level of stress increases as the subject transitions from a prone position to a standing position to seated position to a slumped forward seated position. The chart shows the pressure in the discs to equal 100% of your body weight while standing, approximately 125% of your bodies weight while sitting and over 140% of your body weight when sitting in a forward slumped position.

The reason that sitting is so hard on your back from a postural standpoint is due to the anatomy of the lower back vertebra. When we are standing, your lower back naturally has a forward sweeping curve with the concavity of that curve facing rearward. That curve acts to efficiently divide the weight of your body between the discs that separate your vertebra and the joints that run down the back of your spine. When you assume a seated position, that curve straightens out transferring some of your weight from the posterior joints to the discs. Slumping forward transfers even more weight resulting in more compression of the discs and more stress on the low backs discs.

As time passes, this increase pressure causes irritation of the overloaded spinal structures eventually leading to inflammation, spasm and pain. This is the basic process with many injuries to the body that result from ongoing exposure to some irritating or stressful activity.

How is this postural stress negated? Well, unfortunately, all if it can’t be. But it can be limited by practicing good posture and the right ergonomic principals. A brief ergonomic evaluation of your work area can give you loads of valuable information that will help minimize the effects of your work environment on your body.

Sitting is a sedentary task but like most things in life, if you don’t do it properly there will be undesirable consequences.

Work Safe!

Here’s To Your Health

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Yours Ergonomically,
Steve Jones

Ergonomic Office Supplies

San Diego Chiropractor

(619) 280-0554

Keywords: chiropractic, ergonomic principals, postural stress, posture, work safe

Repetitive Stress Trauma or RST is described entirely by the words that make up the phrase.  Repetition implies that the injury is the result of more than one exposure.  Typical RSTs result from weeks, months or years of performance of a repetitive task with a specific body part.  Stress is the result of inadequate recovery time in between exposures to the repetitious task.  Trauma, of course signifies bodily injury as a result of the repetitive stress.

Health care workers primarily view Repetitive Stress Trauma as an occupational or work injury.  This thought is based on government statistics which indicate that those who work are more likely to develop an RST injury.  While these statistics can’t be denied, they also need to be taken into proper context.  In my San Diego based chiropractic clinic, we see many patients with RST injuries.  Most of the time, most of the trauma is related to work, more specifically to computer work.  Additionally, many of these injured people spend upwards of six hours per day on their computers while at work only to come home, eat dinner, and then sit at their own computers for hours on end as well.  It doesn’t matter where the stress comes from, the injury remains the same.  That being said, in my 15 years of experience in dealing with RSTs I have found the primary source of irritation to be the work environment.

At this point I will go off on a tangent for just a moment … or more.  One of the services that my office offers is ergonomic evaluations.  Since most of my patients are in computer related occupations, most of my evaluations are on computer set-ups.  Typically, when I question my patients about their work stations I hear the following, “Well, it is pretty good except for FILL IN THE BLANK.”  At this point I usually suggest that I come to their place of work and evaluate their work station.  They are usually way out of the ideal ergonomic set-up.  I see keyboards, mice, monitors and phones positioned in ways that will certainly lead to a worsening of their condition.

RSTs, ergonomics and permanent disability are important topics.  As such, I will end this article at this point and be back tomorrow or Tuesday with a continuation of what I have started.  This topic will be covered over the next three or four posts.  Stay tuned.

Doc

Here’s To Your Health

Yours Ergonomically,

Dr. Jones

Economic Mouse Platform Ergo Nav
San Diego Chiropractic
Pain Relief San Diego Chiropractic

(619) 280-0554