Physical Therapy and Posture

The amount of time American people spend sitting to do their work or to attend their daily activities is increasing.  We use to walk around the office or go to the coffee room to socilize with coworkers. Nowaday, computer advances make it convenient to accomplish various tasks, including mingling with people, without leaving the chair.  We use "instant massanger" or we simply "text".

It is so easy to get absorbed in a project or task and ignore that nagging upper back nexk shoulder pain or muscle fatigue low back pain from the tailbone. To solve the various back problems caused by poor posture seating that 4 in every 5 Americans working in an office setting experience some time in their life, we need to understand posture and find the right physical therapy.

Posture is used in examining people and determining if treatment for back or neck problems has made any changes in a user who constantly sitting in an office task chair. Based on Webster’s Dictionary, posture is defined as "the position or bearing of the body”. And it refers to the overall alignment of our various body parts to each other when we are standing or sitting in a relaxed stance.

What is good ergonomics posture?

The ideal posture when standing is when the earlobe, edge of the shoulder, hip joint and outside bump of the ankle all lined up on a plumb line. The center of the knee is slightly in front of that line. It means the person’s overall structure is in good mechanical balance. Posture could be the result of many underlying processes and tensional relationships throughout the body. It becomes a indicator of the measurement for the overall balances in the body. In addition, posture can be used as a tool to assess if interventions have resulted in a change in overall body balance.

What Posture tells us?

The therapist or doctor of chiropractic can observe the variations from this ergonomic posture to detect if any areas of the body that can't properly function. The goal of physical therapy is to restore of the body's full mechanical abilities that will allow the patients to have "good" posture. Heat and Ice therapy with massage are the popular techniques used among chiropractors or therapists. Other techniques to restore these abilities may include exercise, stretching, massage and other soft tissues techniques, modalities such as ultrasound, and re-education in ergonomics health safety movement patterns and positions during activities. Recently, ergonomics have become the focus of good office seating as more and more people suffer from back problems resulted from bad posture.  The office chair has become a critical tool for health and its benefits can result to good productivity.

Sitting posture matters and office chair is critical tool for health

Prolonged positioning in static posture leads to back problem because our body is unevenly stressed. Posture is used as a feedback mechanism for the person. A person may be told to be conscious of positioning himself or herself frequently to an optimal posture, i.e. "sit comfortable at the proper-conitioned height adjustable office chair", or to retrain themselves for doing tasks in a way that places less stress on the body and lessens the chance of injuries later.

We usually do not pay any attention on the stress on our body when sitting.  And correct posture generally doesn't occur to us whether if we are sitting for a short time or if we are actually sitting for over an extended period of time. According to Bryan Gentry, the founder of Cool Man’s Mesh, it is most important to choose an ergonomic posture chair in the office or at home that has heat or cold therapy with massage to keep your back staying active and fully supported.

The restoration of a person’s ability to achieve good posture through applied ergonomically office seating is a goal in physical therapeutic back pain treatment. Posture plays as an indicator to different seating solutions.  A new study found that office chairs that incorporate a hot and cold gel pack back pain relief with massage into the seating structure were shown to reduce the activity of some back muscles by up to 28 percent. The significance of these results cannot be underestimated.