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News Releases
MU Therapist Offers Tips to Avoid Repetitive Stress Injury in the Workplace
Columbia, Mo. (March 11, 2005) - Using computers is a way of life for millions of office workers across the country. However, some office workers might be positioning themselves in front of a computer incorrectly when it comes to preventing or managing arthritis pain. Arthritis is second only to heart disease as the leading cause of work-related disability, and more than 50 percent of individuals with arthritis are unemployed within 10 years after their diagnosis. To help combat these statistics, researchers at the Missouri Arthritis Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (MARRTC) at the University of Missouri-Columbia offer tips to help keep joints and ligaments healthy, even when performing repetitive job-related tasks.
Occupational therapist and Co-investigator Diana Baldwin says office workers should take the following steps in order to decrease their risk of developing work-related pain:
- Check your sitting and work posture.
Your back should be supported, and your head should be upright. Your arms should hang loosely at your side with elbows bent at 90 degrees. Moreover, you should face your monitor with no twisting. Your feet should be flat on the floor or resting on a footrest, and your arms and wrist should be free and not resting on a surface edge. These positions are guaranteed to provide you with decreased pain and stiffness. Remember to not twist the body and sit in a natural upright posture. Always turn to face your work.
- Have a co-worker check you out to see if you are a "percher" (sitting on the edge of the chair) or a "turtle" (sitting with your head stuck out forward) or an "octopus"(wrapping your feet around your chair).
Take a picture of your position while working in order to monitor what not to do.
- When you are using the keyboard your wrist should NOT be bent up.
Try to work with your wrist in neutral or slightly bent downward.
- Your monitor should be within arm length and between 28 and 18 inches away from your eyes, and your eyes should look on a level with your window's tool bar.
- If you frequently use the phone and tuck it between your head and shoulder or twist your neck when using, consider purchasing a headset.
- Your most important and frequent work tasks should be in your work zone, which is a semicircle reach in front of you.
Redo how you complete tasks that cause you to overreach frequently.
- Give your muscles and eyes a break to recover every 20 to 30 minutes.
Take a microbreak of three to four minutes. Rotate all your joints and tense and relax all your muscle groups, then look at an object 20 feet away four to five times for 10 seconds to help your eyes exercise and readjust.
Baldwin and George "Brick" Johnstone, professor of health psychology, are conducting a study in collaboration with the Missouri Department of Vocational Rehabilitation that seeks to learn how to improve job success and job retention among people with disabilities. The researchers will study the effectiveness of work-site intervention for persons with osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis who report difficulties in the workplace.
Baldwin and Johnstone hope the study's results will benefit employers by helping them keep their current employees by
1.) reducing expenses associated with recruiting and training new hires and
2.) reducing missed days at work.
Researchers are currently recruiting volunteers between the ages of 18 and 60, who are currently employed full- or part-time, and who have been diagnosed with either osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis. For information about MARRTC project, call (877) 882-6826 or log on at www.marrtc.org.
The Worksite Vocational Rehabilitation Intervention to Improve Employment Outcomes for Persons with Arthritis project evaluates the effectiveness of worksite intervention by an occupational therapist for persons with osteoarthritis (OA) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who report difficulties in the workplace. This comparative research study seeks to help people with arthritis remain employed longer. Outcomes will be measured in terms of long-term job retention, job satisfaction, hours worked per week, personal income, public assistance received and health status. This project is being conducted in collaboration with the Missouri Division of Vocational Rehabilitation and the Department of Health Psychology at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
The Missouri Arthritis Research Rehabilitation and Training Center (MARRTC) was established in 1971 at the University of Missouri-Columbia Arthritis Center. MARRTC is funded by the U.S. Department of Education's National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (H133B031120) and is the only federally funded arthritis rehabilitation research and training center in the country.
As part of the MU Health Communication Research Center (HCRC), MARRTC's mission is to become a national leader in the areas of disability management and communication, improve the quality of life and promote independent living among people who have arthritis and arthritic conditions. MARRTC's core message is "Disability is everyone's issue."
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