How To Set Up an Ergonomic Workstation

As you read in my last article published here on October 1st, injuries caused from the repetitive strains of even modest lengths of time working at a computer are common and almost expected to occur. What I want to do in this installment of Chiropractic Health Care is to make some suggestions as to how you can do the proper ergonomic thing right there in your home in order to improve your chances of staying injury-free while enjoying the computer world. Much of this information I got from an ergonomics site at Cornell University, which you can visit via this link: "http://ergo.human.cornell.edu/ergoguide...." There are lots of "shoulds" coming, so get ready.

Let's start with your chair. Your feet should rest flat on the floor 6-8 inches in front of your knees. You should have and use a lumbar support, placed just above where you would normally wear a belt. Most lumbar supports, especially those in a car, are simply too high. You should endeavor to be leaning backwards about 100-110 degrees. Erect sitting posture at 90 degrees is very tiring and way too hard on the muscles between your shoulder blades. Your hands should reach the keyboard comfortably and you should sit square to your monitor

Everyone knows your keyboard should be lower than the height at which you would write at your desk. The standard height of a keyboard tray used to be 26.5 inches. Now it is recognized that the best position for your hands to be while typing is 2 or 3 inches below the level of your wrists, and that your keyboard should be slanted away, not raised up at the front, as most are. In other words, the properly angled keyboard tray is not a good place to put your teacup. If upset, it would spill onto your feet, not onto your lap.

Another thing about keyboards, those split ones, that we 'Hunt and Peck' people find so frustrating to use, have never been found of much benefit in helping to avoid hand or wrist troubles.

If you are copying something onto your computer, have the document or book at the same level, height and angle as your monitor and as close to it as possible. Your monitor should be directly facing you, not angled or sitting off to one shoulder or another. The monitor should tilt backwards about 10 or 15 degrees and be about an arm's length away. Your natural and most comfortable eye position (and therefore, neck and head position) should be 2 or 3 inches below the top of your monitor's cabinet. When you are sitting in front of your monitor, with your lumbar support in place and resting comfortably backwards 100-110 degrees, you should be able to reach forward with your arm horizontal and be able to touch the centre of the screen. These same principles apply to those who wear bifocals.

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