Coping With the Work-from-Home Challenges through Ergonomics

A few months ago, a death-dealing virus imposed billions of people around the globe to stay at home, and this includes working at home too. Many workers transitioned and conformed to the work-from-home arrangement. Though unprepared and beyond ken, workers who were once used to corporate office tasks need to stay productive and efficient in their new home office.

To effectively address the challenges of working from home, they cling to ergonomics. That being so, the question now lies, “How to set up a proper ergonomic-inspired workspace in your home?”

Rooting around the Internet may help you with the basics but as you may know, ergonomics is a lot more intricate than you can fathom. An excellent and efficient ergonomics require taking into consideration a great deal of detail. This is where ergonomic consulting sets foot on. Professional ergonomic consultants identify the ergonomic hazards in your office that place your health at risk and design ergonomic solutions tailored to your specific needs. 

Some of the most common elements of office ergonomics include proper laptop screen or monitor placement, and pain-free keyboard and mouse use. These ergonomic-designed types of equipment advance comfort, safety, and free from all kinds of pain. 

In helping you to assess if you’re on the right track with ergonomics, this article discusses these aforementioned components. Let us evaluate if you’re laptop screen or monitor, keyboard and mouse are ergonomically accurate.

Laptops are the most used office equipment in a work-from-home setting because of the features of mobility and convenience it provides. However, laptops are actually not ergonomically recommended. Working with laptops all day may contribute to a postural strain. We often work with laptops with head and neck facing downwards and back hunching over. No proper posture support may decline our health and is considered to be an ergonomic hazard.

In addition to the ergonomic risk brought about by laptops are the inability to separate the screen and the keyboard. Separating the monitor and keyboard may protect yourself from back, neck, elbow, and other correlated strains. 

How to Separate your Laptop Screen and Keyboard?

To adapt to ergonomics, separating the laptop screen and keyboard is a good idea, but how do you do it without having to destroy your laptop?

There are two options that you can choose. First, you may use a full-size desktop monitor and dock the laptop with a port replicator. The second option is placing your laptop above an ergonomic-designed laptop stand and plug in an external keyboard and mouse. Now, you have effectively separated your screen from these devices.

Place your Laptop Screen Ergonomically Right

Aside from making sure that your laptop screen is disjoined from your keyboard and mouse, it is also best to place your laptop screen on your desk in an ergonomically right way. Follow these reminders about your laptop screen placement:

-     It must be set in your comfortable eye level.

-     It must be placed slightly below your neutral horizontal line of sight.

-     It must maintain neutral postures with your neck aligned to your spine.

Following these lists of reminders can protect you from neck pain, upper back discomfort, lower backaches, headaches, and more strains to mention.

Separate your Keyboard and Mouse

Separating your laptop screen from an external keyboard and mouse may not be enough to relieve you from the health risks. Your keyboard and mouse must be properly disjoined too. This is beneficial to avoid awkward postures that may result in discomfort to your hands, wrists, elbows, forearms, shoulders, and other musculoskeletal problems.

To gain more understanding about the importance of keyboard and mouse separation, it is essential to know the ergonomic risk factors associated with improper keyboard and mouse use.

What are the Ergonomic Risk Factors of Improper Keyboard and Mouse Use?

1. The Contact Stress of Wrist Extensions. Extending your forearms and shoulder to reach the mouse may stimulate unnecessary strains to your hand, forearm, shoulders, and neck. Working on a low desk height may harmfully cause excessive wrist extensions. Working on a tall desk height may flex your wrists in the opposite direction. In addition to that, leaning your wrist to a hard surface or edge of the desk may also cause stress and pain to your wrist, nerves, and tendons.

2. Wrist or Ulnar Deviations. Placing your keyboard improperly or using a non-ergonomic keyboard may cause wrist deviations or the movement of bending the wrist to the thumb or radial bone. This movement can aggravate the hands, wrists, and forearms on the parallel side which leads to tightness and numbness.

3. High Key Force and Finger Impact. The two most common keyboard key switches are the full-travel and short-travel. Most standard keyboards are incorporated with full-travel key switches which necessitate more physical effort to press and cause finger strain and fatigue. Meanwhile, compact keyboards such as that of laptops are entailed with short-travel key switches that require less key force and effort to press is also feasible for cumulative finger and hand strains.

4. Mouse overreach. A wider keyboard can be associated with a greater reach in using your mouse. This unnecessary extension can be a ground for neck, forearm, shoulder, elbow, and wrist strains as well as postural stress.

When you are starting to realize that the abovementioned ergonomic risk factors are relatable to your working situation, it’s time to make a move and plan for a change. One thing you can do is get the ergonomically right keyboard that is customized for your needs.

How to assess the right keyboard?

Choosing the ergonomically right keyboard can protect you from risking your health, comfort, and safety. Here are sets of criteria you can follow to examine and choose the right keyboard. 

The ergonomically right keyboard…

1. Reduces wrist extensions. You can pick from a zero-degree slope that levels your wrists, forearm, and hand or concave key wells keyboard that position your wrists and hands in a neutral position. These two ergonomic keyboards come with optional palm supports to place your wrist in a completely neutral position.

2. Lessens Wrist or Ulnar Deviations. Choosing among an adjustable split, splay or fixed split keyboards that allow the wrists, arms, and hands to be lateral with the shoulders can either way help reduce ulnar deviations. These adjustable and portable keyboards can place your arms and wrists in a relaxed posture at wherever place you might be typing.

3. Eliminates High Key Force and Fingertip Impact. To address these key switches issues, an ergonomic keyboard promotes a low activation key force. This keyboard type merely needs less effort in pressing and eliminate unnecessary impacts.

4. Promotes Mouse Accurate Extent of Reach. An ergonomic shorter keyboard design enables maximum shoulder comfort because it has minimized unnecessary reach. This keyboard is made with a shorter width because it embedded the numeric keypad in the right key module.

Determining the right keyboard and mouse and understanding its proper placement together with your laptop screen or monitor is convenient. However, these are just the tip of an iceberg. There are a lot more ways to consider in totally comprehending the intricacies of ergonomics. 

With this in mind, you need ergonomic assistance from a certified professional ergonomist. These well-trained people will help you cope with the challenges of working from home while you strive to continue the survival mode during this pandemic. And you came to the right partner, ergonomics is proven and tested to help you live and work with comfort, safety, healthy and maximum productivity.

Source: kinesis-ergo.com