Pain from Office Work by Dr Philip Worthington

This article was published in September 2010 by Dr Philip Worthington specifically about back pain but bad Computer Posture leads to many painful conditions which his work also addresses.

Dr Worthington has been working to improve awareness of the dangers of computer posture for some years and to do something about it himself, he created PostureMinderTM, the award-winning, best in class software that tells you when you have bad posture!

Back pain due to office work

Back pain due to sedentary lifestyles, particularly sitting in front of a computer at work, home or school for long periods, is a fast-growing problem.

Up to now, few cases of this type of back pain have led to large compensation payouts (such as those starting to be seen for RSI conditions), mainly because of the difficulty of proving the cause of back pain.

That’s bound to change as the impact of poor ergonomics builds up over the years – remember, few people were working on computers 20 years ago, much less using them as children or in their spare time.

The rise in laptop use compounds the problem. Prevention is better than cure. Everyone knows they should sit in good postures, and some know how to set up their workstation for ergonomic working, and about the importance of taking regular short breaks.

Posture Minder - Health and Safety Expo award winnerHowever, look around a typical office and you’ll see few people do these things – the fact is, they’ve built up damaging posture and working habits over many years. Breaking out of these bad habits is difficult; after all, you’re meant to be concentrating on your work, not your posture.

I’ve spent the last few years developing an award-winning,low-cost software solution to these problems. It can be used preventatively, or to help back pain suffers recover from an episode of backache and prevent recurrence.

Dr Philip Worthington