Ergonomics is not just about hardware -- it should be applied to every aspect of how a task is undertaken, including the state of mind of the person concerned, according to expert Peter Buckle, Professor of Health Ergonomics at The Robens Institute for Health Ergonomics.
Professor Buckle claims that IT professionals could be at particular risk of incurring Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) complaints because they frequently have more than one monitor, or even complete systems, on their desks and very little research has been done on the long-term health risks associated with using multiple workstations.
As part of RSI Week, ZDNet UK spoke with Professor Buckle, whose department is part of The European Institute of Health and Medical Sciences based at the University of Surrey, about minimising RSI exposure and whether software and hardware manufacturers are taking the issue seriously.
What type of activities lead to RSI-type complaints?
The causes we know about include people working for long periods of time in very fixed postures -- especially if those postures involve you working with a bit of your body away from a neutral position. A neutral position would probably be with your arm resting on your thigh or something like that, with your elbow close to your side. The moment you start doing anything that moves away from the neutral position means your muscles are having to work against gravity or to hold the joint at a particular angle and that gets fatiguing after a while. If you are working in this position for two or three hours, then when you stop you'll often find that you get some pain or a twinge and that's what we're working to avoid.
Another problem we know about stress. Your perception of what is going on is different also, and that can exacerbate things. Some of those things are to do with the input device -- the keyboard or the mouse -- but some are to do with the type of work undertaken.
You've carried out some research looking into the relationship between different Non-Keyboard Input Devices (NKIDs) and RSI. Did you reach any conclusions such as whether a track-ball is safer than a mouse?
The kind of advice we give to people is not, 'Is the tracker-ball right, is the mouse right?' but to try different devices and find one that suits the way you work. Second, if you're not using the mouse get your hand off it -- put it down by your side.
The focus on the mouse is quite an important one because we've all moved in the past five to 10 years from systems that are predominantly keyboard-based to GUI-type interfaces. So you're using the mouse probably as much as your keyboard. That is quite an important change for everybody, which is why the mouse is up in the frame.
