Seven Ways to Survive the Electronic Office : A User-Friendly Environment for Happier, Healthier Workers

It doesn’t take an expert to figure out that the office can be a pain in the neck.

A breed of experts known as ergonomists, however, is convinced that the pain in the neck and the shoulders, arms, hands, feet and eyes, as well as high blood pressure, allergies, skin rashes and even varicose veins may be linked to the work place, especially the modern “electronic office.”

Lamenting a dearth of conclusive medical research, physicians, union leaders, employers and workmens’ compensation attorneys are grappling with the intricacies of possible health problems that can affect the estimated 20 million Americans who spend their working hours at video display terminals, or VDTs.

In the meantime, ergonomists point out that business has at least as much of a stake in maintaining its human resources as it does its machines, and suggest a plethora of measures to keep those of you tapping away at VDTs healthier, happier, and more productive.

“Stresses (in the workplace) come from the fact that there’s an inappropriate match between the people, the technology, the task, and the support equipment . . . ,” said T. J. Springer, a Chicago-based human factors specialist (as American ergonomists call themselves). “Since it’s kind of difficult to change people, we concentrate on things that can be adjusted: Furniture, environmental elements, etc. “

STEP 1: Get a Good Chair

Ergonomists generally agree that the chair is the single most important piece of equipment in an office. But, they warn, people often mistake “cush” for “comfort.”

Sally Weinstock, for instance, used to spend a lot of time sitting down on the job. One weekend, the writer/producer, who lives in Tahoe City, sat for 30 hours straight pounding out a television script. Then she spent 10 days in bed taking pain pills.

“It was totally ridiculous. I used a director’s chair--there was no support.”

After two operations to correct a ruptured disk, she remains on permanent disability. Her doctors attribute her problem largely to prolonged sitting on bad chairs, she said.

Ergonomists say that an improperly designed chair and the bad posture it encourages, besides causing musculoskeletal strain, can cause swelling of the lower legs, bad circulation, elevated blood pressure and varicose veins.

A good chair, on the other hand, permits prolonged sitting without stressing the body. It supports the curvature of the back, especially through the lumbar region, while allowing natural movement; it’s designed for a specific task and allows sitters to keep both feet flat on the floor with their legs bent at a 90-degree angle. People who are too short to fit their chair and their desk are advised to use footrests to maintain an ergonomically correct posture.

STEP 2: Choose the Right Desk

An improperly designed or adjusted desk is almost as effective as those medieval contraptions designed to wrack the body, ergonomists say.

Working for a long time in a constrained posture, with the arms extended, may cause cumulative trauma disorders (a.k.a. “repetitive strain injuries” or “occupational overuse injuries”) such as carpal tunnel syndrome (a crimping of a nerve in the sheath of tendons running from the forearm to the hand), tendinitis, tenosynovitis (an inflammation or enlargement of the tendon sheath) and other problems of the muscles, skeleton and nerves of the upper body.

Meat packing, grocery checking, and other types of repetitive work have been linked to repetitive strain injuries. Now many ergonomists believe that intense hours at a VDT are another prescription for cumulative stress--which may explain why the afflictions are widely reported among airline reservation clerks and newsroom reporters.

As head trader at a discount stock brokerage, Mary Ellen White-Vondran, of Los Altos spent eight hours a day pulling up stock quotes, checking clients’ accounts, and sending electronic mail on a VDT. After a typical day, her back, neck and arms hurt. And kept hurting. Among other problems, she became sleepless, nervous, and irritable, she said.

Her former employer does not accept her contention that her illness is work related, White-Vondran said. But she has studied the subject, and knows that many ergonomists are less willing to discount the connection between the sort of afflictions from which she suffers and work in an electronic office.

“It’s premature to link specific working conditions to cumulative trauma disorders, because studies just have not been done--there simply is no hard data,” said Steven Sauter, head of the motivation and stress research section at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The institute doesn’t suggest that workers ignore the potential for office-inflicted mayhem, however.

“Some of these problems may take years to develop, and the discomfort alone can be disabling regardless of whether there’s medical evidence confirming the afflictions,” Sauter said.

But ergonomists also advise that with the proper work station design, most repetitive strain injuries can be avoided. As a rule, desk surfaces where paper shuffling is done should be higher than the computer keyboard, which should be moveable to allow proper distancing from the VDT. A VDT level copy stand can help alleviate neck strain and eye focusing problems, using a telephone headset, rather than cradling a phone on the shoulder, cuts down on stress to the muscles and skeleton of the neck, upper back and shoulders, and using a padded rest cuts down on pressure on the palms and wrists.

STEP 3: Adjust Your VDT

Almost universally, people working closely with VDTs experience general symptoms known as asthenopia , which include tired, aching eyes and headaches, said Dr. Ian Bailey, a professor of optometry at UC Berkeley who has been working in visual ergonomics for more than 20 years.

Eye problems occur in part because most offices were designed before the VDT. The rapid and repeated adjustment from the brightness of the glowing green or amber screen to hard copy makes the eyes woozy. And the vision strain can also cause postural problems, ergonomists say.

A couple years ago, Nancy Poggi, a legal administrator at a Berkeley law firm, noticed that she was having a hard time focusing on her VDT. Her eyes ached and her neck hurt. When Poggi learned that UC Berkeley’s School of Optometry had opened a VDT/Eye clinic she was “amazed and surprised and thrilled” at this confirmation that she wasn’t imagining the link between her afflictions and her VDT.

She went to the clinic, where eye specialists recommended a new prescription for her glasses, advised her to sit farther from the screen, to put more space between herself and the keyboard, to put copy holders at eye level with the screen, and to adjust the office lighting. With the whole-hearted approval of management, she urged the firm’s secretaries and receptionists, who complained of similar symptoms, to also go to the clinic.

As in most tasks requiring extended close-up visual focusing, staring at a VDT screen has been shown in some studies to lead to short-lived nearsightedness, and some optometrists and ophthalmologists say VDT users require more frequent prescription changes.

“The thing we don’t know is: Are there any long term effects?” said Michael Smith, professor of industrial engineering at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

There are, however, relatively simple measures that can reduce eye strain. An ergonomically correct monitor moves up and down and back and forth as well as in and out to adjust the viewing angle--which should be about 25 degrees lower than the horizon, ergonomists generally agree.

Proper overhead lighting, source lighting for paper work, and glare-reducing hoods and filters over video screens to cut down on the contrasts between the VDT and other copy, also reduce eye strain.

STEP 4: Use a VDT Filter (maybe)

VDTs were once rumored to cause cataracts, but most recent evidence strongly suggests that they don’t, ergonomists say.

However, an even more controversial VDT issue is the possibility that radiation emitted by the machines causes birth defects. Studies have effectively eliminated concern about the TV-type emissions, which are well below federal safety standards, ergonomists seem to agree. But some research in Europe suggestes a link between statistical clusters of problem pregnancies and birth defects and so-called very low frequency radiation emitted by many computer terminals.

“I’m appalled at the indifference to this problem in the United States,” said Lewis Lessin, editor of the New York-based newsletters “VDT News” and “Microwave News.”

Other problems linked to VDTs in European studies include allergies and skin rashes possibly caused by the weak electromagnetic fields (EMF) emitted by VDTs.

Anti-static screens of carbon-treated nylon mesh, metal or metalized plastic placed over a VDT reportedly reduce EMF waves and some claim to shield a user against very low frequency radiation. But recent studies in Sweden found that certain screens on the market don’t work or lose their effectiveness quickly.

STEP 5: Clear the Air

The advent of energy conservation has led companies to increase the amount of insulation they use and cut down the number of times fresh air is pumped into a building--thus air quality problems have worsened in recent years, said Rani Lueder, president of the Encino-based Humanics ergonomics firm and editor of “The Ergonomics Payoff,” a 1986 book that studies health and productivity in the electronic office.

Allergies, eye irritation, dry throat, headaches, fatigue, sinus congestion, skin irritation, shortness of breath, coughs, dizziness, and nausea have all been attributed to poor air quality in offices, she said.

As solutions, Lueder advises businesses to circulate fresh air into the building more frequently, to use proper filters in the air-supply system, to remove internal sources of pollution--and to plan ahead, avoiding some of the toxic compounds used in office and furniture construction.

STEP 6: Cut the Noise

As routine work becomes automated, workers’ level of concentration increases and distractions become more of a problem. But “perception of noise is a relative phenomenon,” Lueder said. “You don’t want it to be too quiet or people will go up the wall.”

Soothing “white noise” and “pink noise” emitted at specific frequencies can mask distracting sounds. Acoustical surfaces, including office dividers, hanging sound baffles and wall treatments absorb sound and cut office noise levels. And dampening devices, print buffers, and acoustical shields can reduce the racket created by electronic printers and office machines.

Although office noise seldom causes deafness or the severe problems found in some high-decibel industries, sound levels--along with a complex of other factors, including management philosophy--do affect stress, Lueder and other ergonomists say. And one out of 10 California workers’ compensation cases is stress-related, according to a 1986 NIOSH study cited by Lueder.

Lueder named irritability, depression, ulcers, migraines, arthritis, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and general low resistance to disease as problems that have been linked to tension.

STEP 7: Exercise

Ergonomists want you to squirm. They want you to wiggle and fidget and pace.

“The best thing you can do is move around periodically. Get up and stretch. Exercise,” said Smith. Another way to keep the body moving is to design jobs so that there is less repetitive work, ergonomists say.

Pointing out that only 14% of office workers belong to a union and thus cannot negotiate for improved ergonomics in their contracts, the National Association of Working Women, 9 to 5, is lobbying for legislation against practices it considers odious, such as the trend toward electronically monitoring the number of keystrokes a computer operator performs per hour.

Rani Lueder recalls the time a government agency asked her to help with its ergonomic problems. In the past, workers had typed out certain forms on typewriters. With the introduction of computers, they merely inserted one line into the form time after time, hour after hour on their VDTs.

“Management asked me to pick a chair that would make these people work better,” Lueder said. “I told them there wasn’t a chair anywhere that could make them work better under those circumstances.”

The moral?

An ergonomist would put it this way: Unless a company understands the differences between its employees and its machines, the ones that can have health problems probably will.

Ideal Chair Qualities*1. Back rest: Reclining, adjustable seat backs that support spine curvature relieve musculo-skeletal stress.

2. Seat dimensions: Ergonomists can’t agree whether the seat should be long or short but do agree that the seat should be contoured to distribute pressure evenly, and inclined forward.

3. Cushioning: An inch and a half to two inches of firm foam padding is optimal.

4. Seat height: Should permit legs to bend at an angle of 90 degrees or slightly more.

5. Seat casters: Allow movement, important for preventing skeletal and muscular stresses. For stability, five casters have become the international standard.

6. Titability: Absorbs shock and allows motion, stimulating circulation and reducing building of muscular tension.

*according to various sources.

A Task lighting,reduces video screen glare and may help alleviate eyestrain (a possible cause of headaches).

B Eye-level files and utility trays,may reduce muscle strain caused by awkward stretching.

C Telephone headset,may reduce neck muscle nerve and tendon injuries caused by cradling telephone on shoulder.

D Smokeless ashtray,may improve air quality, which affects everything from allergies to energy levels to chronic respiratory problems.

E Adjustability of video display terminal,keyboard stand and other work surfaces may reduce stress on the skeleton and muscles, as well as eye discomfort.

F Foot support,keeps feet from dangling and may decrease stress on the spine, lower legs and feet, possibly reducing leg swelling (which raises blood pressure, and may cause varicose veins, among other problems).

G Palm rest,may in some cases reduce stress on the wrist and arms, decreasing the risk of “repetitive strain injuries” such as tendinitis.

H Sound-dampening work station dividers reduce noise level in the office, possibly decreasing overall stress and related ill effects on health.

I Document holders may reduce strain on cervical vertebrae caused by excessive twisting of the neck as eyes move between video screen and paper copy.