OT Corner: Ergonomics Ala the Children's World
By Amy Wagenfeld, Ph.D., OTR/L
Originally printed in November, 2004

I think that most of us are pretty familiar with words such as ergonomics, 
repetitive stress injuries, and carpal tunnel syndrome, but how often do we 
think of them as applying to children?  I would like to take some time to 
think about the importance of good ergonomics and how they are important for 
children.  First of all, let's talk about the whole concept of ergonomics.  
Ergonomics is derived from the Latin, ergo (work), and nomics (the study or 
science of), so ergonomics is the study or science of work.  Putting ergonomics 
into the perspective of children, it is the study of assessing the work demands 
and or school conditions as they apply to a student or students.

You might wonder why it is important that we even think about work demands and 
how it applies to children.  I will give you two reasons: heavy backpacks and 
increased computer use, both in the classrooms and at home, which add up to 
children complaining about things like back, neck, shoulder, wrist, and hand pain 
(and there are undoubtedly more).  When talking about computer use, here is an 
interesting statistic.  70% of all elementary school classrooms in the US are 
equipped with computers, and this number increases by 10% each year - wow!  
It seems as if computers are here to stay, so what can we do to help keep our 
children injury free?

One of the hot, new practice areas of occupational therapy is ergonomics - especially 
as it applies to children.  As I mentioned last month in my transitions column, 
the American Occupational Therapy Association has partnered with a major mail 
order catalog company to promote the use of correct backpack safety and fit.  
Remember, a backpack should only be loaded to 10-15% of a child's body weight.  
Let's also talk about how we can address the computer station, and make it as 
safe and healthy a place for our children to work at as possible.

We need to make sure that the children are seated so that hips, knees, and ankles 
are all at 90-degree angles.  This might involve some creativity like using foot 
rests, lower chairs, and computer tables with pull out keyboard trays, and other 
ingenious ideas.  Children need to be looking straight at the monitor, not bending 
or craning their necks to see.  Elbows need to rest on chair arms, shoulders, arms, 
and wrists need to be relaxed, and fingers, gently curved over the keys.  Sitting 
either too close or too far from the screen is also less than optimal.  Lighting 
should be as bright and natural as possible, but when possible, avoid sun glare.  
You can achieve this by positioning the workstation perpendicular to a window.

So, now that we have the children seated properly, what shall we do?  Limit time 
and take frequent rest breaks, every 15-minutes is a great time to stop work or 
play, and close your eyes and stretch out those fingers, arms, and shoulders.  
A good lesson to all of us - listen to our bodies so that when working at the 
computer even remotely begins to feel lousy, stop and take a break.  Taking care 
of our children and ourselves is really important.  And, on that note, I shall do 
just that.  Next month, we will talk about taking care of us, the grown-ups!

FYI- A few good Internet resources:
Www.ergo.human.cornell.edu/AhProjects/children1/index.htm
Www.kidshealth.org/kid/watch/k_ergonomics.html
Www.aota.org

My thanks to David L. Lee, MA, OTR/L for his assistance with this piece.