| Office chairs are a common enough site and office | | | | adapt a chair to suit the body shape of its user. This |
| workers in most countries have been using them since | | | | flexibility has turned the humble office chair into a |
| offices became necessary for scribes and | | | | sophisticated piece of health and safety apparatus. |
| bookkeepers about 5,000 years ago. However, your | | | | The most important aspect of sitting correctly is to |
| normal office chair has undergone a revolution in | | | | modify the height of the chair so that the feet can be |
| design over the last twenty years or less. The clear | | | | placed flat on the floor with the thighs parallel to the |
| purpose of a normal office chair to permit its user to | | | | floor. The pneumatic or hydraulic lever with which you |
| be able to do his or her job at a desk. | | | | make these modifications should be accessible from |
| However, many office workers are working sitting | | | | your seated position, so that you can be sure of |
| down for long spans of time now without needing to | | | | getting the height right. |
| get up at all. Before the computer became a standard | | | | The seat itself, or the pan, should be wide enough and |
| part of an office worker's paraphernalia, it was often | | | | deep enough to take the posterior without squashing it |
| necessary to get up to get files from the filing cabinet | | | | and resulting in constrained blood flow. The front or |
| or elsewhere. | | | | leading edge of the seat should be rounded and about |
| Nowadays, they are scanned into a computer and can | | | | two inches away from the rear of the knees of the |
| be accessed from the desk. Beforehand, the office | | | | sitter. |
| worker would need to get up to fetch paper, | | | | Armrests are not absolutely needed but are useful for |
| envelopes and carbon paper. Nowadays, carbon | | | | taking a few minutes rest or if you have to do a lot of |
| paper is redundant and the printer's trays are | | | | reading as often the computer keyboard takes up the |
| preloaded with paper of different sizes and envelopes. | | | | space directly in front of the sitter, where the book |
| Dictation that formerly meant walking into the boss's | | | | would normally be put. If the chair has arm rests, they |
| office, now gets handed over on a Dictaphone. | | | | should be modified to suit the elbows of the user. |
| Being seated for long periods like this can be harmful | | | | An office chair must have a back rest which should |
| to health. Some people experience restricted blood | | | | provide additional lumber support. This lumber support |
| flow, which causes cramp, while others assume a bad | | | | should be adaptable upwards and downwards to fit in |
| sitting posture and develop a bad back. The modern | | | | the small of the back of the user. The back rest |
| office chair encapsulates a great deal of science and | | | | should extend to head height, otherwise there should |
| research to try to prevent these and other industrial | | | | be an adjustable head rest, which can be moved up |
| injuries. | | | | and down to suit. |
| The principals used in the design of these modern | | | | If your office chair possesses all these settings and |
| office chairs is called ergonomics. In order to apply the | | | | you adjust them to suit you, you will greatly reduce the |
| principles of ergonomics, it is necessary to be able to | | | | chances of you suffering an industrial injury. |