What can you do about neck pain at the computer?

Published in Computer Screens on Thursday, 13 August 2009
by Catherine Albert  |   Post RSS

The two main reasons for neck pain while working at a computer is an awkward neck posture or a poor visual environment. Surprisingly because the individual doesn’t feel there is a problem to begin with, they can often work for months with a stressful neck posture before feeling any symptoms.

THE THREE MOST FREQUENT CAUSES OF NECK PAIN ARE
 

One. Twisting the neck – usually because the monitor or the keyboard is positioned to the side even slightly or because the documents are positioned to side of the keyboard.

         
 

TWO   Bending the neck – usually because the individual is a non-touch typist and has to look at the keys and then the computer screen and sometime twisting to see documents as well.

THREE  Cradling the phone between the ear and shoulder. If you want to read more information about cradling a phone and the affect on your neck or indeed to find out more from the BBC about a rare but severe event associated with cradling a phone.

         
 

While it may not feel like a position with a lot of twisting or bending you will find that even relatively small amounts of twisting or bending, if they are maintained over a working day or working week can eventually cause fatigue and discomfort.

So if you want to reduce neck pain the first thing you need to do is to have whatever you look at directly in front of you. This may mean moving the computer screen so its straight on. It may mean moving the keyboard to a better position and it may mean moving documents so you can view the documents without twisting or bending your neck.

You can read more about the different document holders available to you make sure you get the right one for the work you do.

Use a headset instead of cradling the phone. If you need to hear whats going on around you at the same time use a mono-aural set and if you want to exclude the noise around you use a bi-aural headset.

The position you want to be sitting in is with your head and neck facing the computer screen in front of you, the keyboard directly in front of the monitor and the document holder as close as possible to the keyboard and screen. If you have to write frequently while sitting at a computer you need to look and see if you need a read and write document holder that fits over your  keyboard.