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David Neeley offered:
[...]
> 3) Monitor position--ergonomics. The top of the monitor should be
> roughly on a level with your eyes; most efficient height is from eye
> level to about 20 degrees below. That is exactly the position of my
> 21" monitor I use here at home. Desks that feature monitor positions
> below the desk surface are generally not a good idea, for they cause
> the "chicken neck" posture mentioned previously.
On re-reading, I can see where certain young'uns would wonder why
we think corrugated, crepey neck skin would constitute an ergonomic
emergency.
Should have referred to a vulture posture instead... think of
Monty Burns, and you've got the general idea.
[...]
> 7) Keyboard. There are many "ergonomic" keyboards out with some
> interesting configurations designed to reduce physical strain. One of
> the more radical is the Safe-Type vertical keyboard and mouse.
>http://www.safetype.com Although it looks like a radical departure,
> the science behind it looks to be sound.
I'm typing this on one of those keyboards, right now. I paid about
half price for a refurb unit. Works fine. I should probably get
the vertical mouse to go with it, but it's not urgent. What I *WILL*
get is the add-on keypad. Having the numbers and navigation keys located
"between the goal-posts" is inconvenient. Learning to type text with
it took almost no time at all... what took some time was the numbers
and function keys that apparently I had been cheating (peeking) all
these years. Ahem...
The keyboard is probably a good idea in general. Lack of it probably
didn't cause my arm troubles last year, but having the thing certainly
made the recovery faster. That's the trouble with those kinds of
problems. They're the result of three or four factors compounding
themselves and each other. So to fix a posture-related problem,
you have to apply correction at several levels.
By the way, the pain in my arm was very real (as in, not just in
my head, and there was a lump the size of a walnut to prove it
(an inflamed supinator muscle... the "beer-drinking muscle"),
but it steadfastly ignored local treatment. The physio guy finally
traced it to an equal-sized knot in my back, and referred me down
the hall to a massage therapist, who gleefully inflicted considerable
pain with her sharp elbows. But once she'd reduced the upper-back
trigger-point (took a few weeks), the arm responded quickly.
Part of the physio's diagnosis and treatment involved neck manipulation
and stretching, which also prompted him to refer me to a chiro.
The chiro, in turn, walked me through the postural metamorphosis
(that originally turned me from Kevin into Monty Burns), which he
thinks began with my seated posture and the bottom of my spine
(which spent most of the past twenty-five years curved under, in
a way that it should not be). Basically, he says that what he and
I can "fix" over the next many months will just come back if I don't
correct how I sit (and lose some weight, but that's another story,
so now you are picturing a _fat_ Monty Burns... better 'n' better...).
Thus, I've got this ergo keyboard from SafeType (I figured I might
as well go whole-hog, rather than farting around with the halfway
split/slanty offerings from other companies), I've just inflated an
exercise ball (65cm, but I might swap it for a 75cm diameter) to use
as a chair, and I'm ordering the desk-mounted arm supports.
A visor may be next.
Oh, and at home, I've got a really good mattress set. Too bad it took
me so long to make those things a priority. I'm not raising these
ergonomics issues in the expectation that some of the younger folk
will take 'em seriously _before_ they have to learn the hard way...
no, I'm just going on record, so twenty years from now I can point
at the archive and say "HAH! I told you so!" :-)
Kevin (formerly aching, still curmudgeon-at-large)
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