When discussing work surroundings with someone, ergonomics can be important to consider. Impressive improvements have been made in the number of worker injuries and illnesses reported in the past 40 years, with a drop from 10.9 incidents per 100 workers in 1972 to 3.4 per 100 in 2011.¹ However, there is still room for improvement. Many workers continue to develop work-related musculoskeletal disorders, soft-tissue injuries that occur gradually and include cumulative trauma disorders, repetitive strain injuries, and overuse injuries. Similarly, many employees have not taken the time to evaluate the ergonomics of workstations, ideally with the help of an ergonomics expert at their workplace.

The word ergonomics comes from the Greek words ergo (work) and nomos (laws) and it has been defined as, “the scientific discipline concerned with the understanding of interactions among humans and other elements of a system, and the profession that applies theory, principles, data, and methods to design in order to optimize human well-being and overall system performance.”² A simple way to describe ergonomics is “harmonizing workers with their jobs.” It includes the reduction of physical –and mental– stress related to how one’s workspace is arranged.

This handout focuses first on ergonomic assessments, then on interventions that can help for certain common situations.

Assessing Ergonomics at Work

Anyone with a job (or for that matter, a computer workspace at home) could be a good candidate for an ergonomics assessment. Those at greatest risk for ergonomics-related health problems include long-term health care employees (with nearly 14 injury cases per 100 employees),³ those who do highly-physical jobs requiring a lot of lifting and repetitive motion, and people who use computer workstations.

Two useful tools for assessing for ergonomics-related issues include:

Body Mapping Exercise

Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) union representatives in Australia have created a Body Mapping Exercise for assessing how work conditions affect employee health.⁴ It encourages employees to complete a diagram localizing their symptoms and categorizing their severity. This tool can be used in advance of an Integrative Health visit or patients can complete it afterward if improving ergonomics is a goal included in the Personal Health Plan (PHP).