The effectiveness of ergonomic chair on discomfort and back muscle activity among young adults

Osman, Nur Amalina (2013) The effectiveness of ergonomic chair on discomfort and back muscle activity among young adults. [Project Paper] (Submitted)

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Abstract

Introduction: A well-designed office chair provides individual or workers with varieties of anthropometric dimension to perform their job or works in a comfortable office environment. Although there are many 'ergonomic' office chairs in the market, it is quite difficult to purchase a 'genuine' ergonomic chair. Thus, in this study, the two set of ergonomic chair (Chair 1 and Chair 2) were from a local chair company. Objective: The general objective of this study is to determine the effectiveness of Chair 1 and Chair 2 compared with a general office chair (Chair 3). Methodology: Thirty respondents were participated in this study, all in good physical condition and with no immediate complaint of musculoskeletal disorder. Each respondents was measured their anthropometric dimension (seat height, shoulder height, elbow height, shoulder breadth, hip breadth, popliteal height and buttock-popliteal length while sitting). The chair dimension (seat height, seat depth, seat width and backrest height) was also measured. Each respondent was asked to sit for 90 minutes on each three different type of chair and their muscle activation (erector spinae muscle) while doing few tasks was recorded using electromyography (EMG). At every 30 minutes of interval, respondents were required to rate their discomfort level on the questionnaire of General Comfort Rating (Shackel's scale). At the end of session, respondents required to answer a questionnaire on Ergonomic Seating Evaluation. Results: This study shows that there is a mismatch (seat depth, seat width and back rest height) between three chairs and the anthropometric measurement of the respondents. In term of discomfort rating of the chairs, the results highlighted that there is a significant differences between the discomfort rating and the three chairs. It was found that the rate of discomfort level (in all body parts) increases over time during the testing period. The EMG result on muscle activation revealed that there is no significant difference between the three chairs. However the muscle activation for the Chair 1 and Chair 2 are better compared to Chair 3 user. The Ergonomic Design Score indicates that the Chair 3 (64.8%) has the more ergonomic features compared to Chair 1 (64.5%) and Chair 2 (49.6%). Conclusions: Overall, it can be concluded that this three office chairs are not truly meet the characteristics of an ergonomic chair. However, each of this chairs have their own superior criteria. Therefore as a recommendation, this chairs need to be redesign to meet the ergonomic features. Keywords: Ergonomic, Anthropometric, Mismatch, Discomfort, Electromyography

Item Type:	Project Paper
Faculty:	Faculty of Medicine and Health Science
Depositing User:	Ms. Adni Syuhaida Zon
Date Deposited:	23 Nov 2022 00:40
Last Modified:	21 Mar 2023 03:12
URI:	http://psaspb.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/306

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