ERGONOMIC ASSESSMENTS
"The Business Manager called me after he received a Certificate of Capacity, on which the medical practitioner stated his patient should undertake a speed typing course to improve pains in the back of the worker’s hands... he wasn’t convinced..."

When I visited the worker, I was told the worker:

• performed counselling tasks, with a clerical component,
• saved all their work on the computer to one day of the week,
• understood some basic about workstation set up.

Upon observation, I found the computer VDU place directly on top of the desk, and the worker had dropped their seat so their head was about level with the VDU. This meant that using the keyboard on the desk required an acute angle between the upper and lower arm, and the wrists were then flexed onto the keyboard. In addition, the worker had broad shoulders and was using a narrow keyboard.

Some simple interventions were made:

1. Raising the workers chair, so they were able to sit to the desk, with their upper arms and lower arms forming a 90 degree angle.
2. The VDU was then raised with a few reams of paper to bring it up to an appropriate height, relative to the operator’s head.
3. A broader, split keyboard was provided to accommodation the worker’s shoulder width.
4. The worker broke up the keying required so they did a little each day, instead of the previous marathon of doing it all on one day.

The worker did not need a speed typing course, and without the ergonomic interventions, would probably have exacerbated her condition by undertaking such a course; the pains in the back of the hands dissipated straightaway.