Save Your Hands!® Injury Prevention & Ergonomics for Manual Therapists

Looking at the equipment a massage therapist uses daily in their work and making sure it fits their body well is an important part of ergonomics, one of the key elements in any injury prevention strategy.

One piece of equipment you probably use quite a bit is a computer. It may not be the piece of equipment you most associate with massage work, but it’s important to look at your computer workstation and make sure it’s set up in a way that minimizes your exposure to risk factors for injury.

Typing on the computer exposes your upper extremity to several risk factors, including repetitive motion (from typing and mousing) and possibly awkward postures. It’s easy to get into a forward-head posture and to “slump” while you work at the computer, and both of these postures create stress for the neck and shoulders. Your neck, back, shoulders and upper extremities may already be overused in your massage work, so you want to make sure you’re not adding to the stress on your body with a computer workstation that is poorly set up.

Ergonomics always seeks to fit the work to the worker, rather than fitting the worker to the work. In the case of working at the computer, you could try to sit up straighter, not crane your neck or keep your wrists as straight as possible; however, if your workstation is set up in such a way that it’s very difficult for you to change your body mechanics, you’re going to be fighting a losing battle. It’s much better to adjust the workstation to better fit your body, making it easier for you to sit in a more neutral posture and keep your wrists straight.

There are a number of good web pages that discuss the ergonomics of one’s computer workstation. Here are some suggestions (links below). You can also find a discussion of this topic and a detailed workstation diagram in the Appendices of Save Your Hands! 2nd Edition:
OSHA e-tool
HealthyComputing.com
UCLA’s 4-Step Guidelines
Laptop tips

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