The influence of computer monitor height on head and neck posture1
Section snippets
Subjects
Twelve staff and students from a university population (aged 21–30) volunteered to participate. All were familiar with keyboard/monitor workstations and possessed some word processing experience.
Procedure
Each subject was provided with a chair, desk, document holder, keyboard, and monitor. The chair, document holder, and monitor were adjustable in height and tilt, and the desk was adjustable in height only. Each subject participated in two experimental conditions which differed only in the location of
Results
Examination of the summary statistics (Table 1) reveals reliable differences between the “eye height” and “low” monitor conditions in terms of the postures adopted to perform the word processing task. The positions of the neck relative to the trunk did not differ; however, greater flexion of the atlanto-occipital and upper cervical joints was observed in the “low” monitor condition. Specifically, while the “low” monitor was associated with an increase in the average maximum flexion of the neck
Discussion
Lowering the monitor did not cause changes in the posture of the neck relative to the trunk, but did increase the flexion of the head relative to the neck. Subjects did not adopt postures in either condition which approximated the previously reported preferred gaze angles, although the gaze angles adopted in the “low” condition were closer.
It is not clear what the functional consequences of the observed postural changes might be. Increases in flexor moment are an inevitable consequence of
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Requests for reprints should be sent to Robin Burgess-Limerick, Department of Human Movement Studies, The University of Queensland, 4072, Australia.