<\/p>\n\n
Although there seems to be a consensus regarding the optimal working postures, there are some difficulties putting it into practice. Why is that? Where is the problem? Let\u2019s analyse it.<\/p><\/p>\n\n
The main goal of ergonomics (the scientific study of people at work) is to prevent soft tissue injuries and MSDs, caused by sudden or prolonged exposure to vibration, repetitive movement and an uncomfortable posture.<\/p>\n\n
Research and progress in ergonomics during recent years has been especially focused on the design of the environment and the teams who perform clinical procedures (\u201cexternal ergonomics\u201d) but not enough attention has been paid to operator efficiency when it comes to posture and movement (\u201cinternal ergonomics\u201d).<\/p>\n\n
According to ergonomics, \u201cposture\u201d is the way in which the different body parts relate to each other establishing a coordination. This coordination can vary depending on the situation. This is the key to internal ergonomics: the right organisation of the various parts of the body, starting with the primary posture coordination between head, neck and back as a support for shoulders, arms and hands.<\/strong><\/p><\/p>\n\n The right working posture should maintain optimal working conditions (i.e. access, visibility and control of the patient\u2019s mouth) and physical and psychological comfort during the clinical procedure.<\/p>\n\n Most dental schools do not teach students how to perform a procedure on their patients without compromising their neck, back and shoulders. Because of that most professionals bend and turn in a harmful way for long periods of time at their workplace. Those common harmful postures are prolonged forced postures (PFPs) that can lead to MSDs.<\/p>\n\n The most uncomfortable postures usually identified amongst dental professionals are extreme bending forward of the head and neck, trunk inclination and one side rotation, lifting one or both shoulders and increasing the spine thoracic curve. Experts in dental ergonomics recommend the 9 o\u2019clock working posture (perpendicular) as it allows working with an unrestricted view of difficult to access areas such as the premolars and the molars. The recommended working posture for dentists is the one called neutral or balanced. It is described in the standard ISO 11226:2000\u00a0Ergonomics \u2013 Evaluations of static operational postures. It is a natural seated posture, not forced and tension free, considering postural biomechanical principles. It must be comfortable, stable and symmetric. It is not easy to perform because of the interference of acquired and continually repeated bad posture habits. As Dr. Skovsgaard says in \u201cDancing Hands\u201d: \u201cWe do what we are used to do, following our habits without thinking about it or being aware. We don\u2019t know what we are doing, so we don\u2019t think that anything could be different. Habits can turn us blind towards the fact that our manual work can be done in a different way and can achieve different results.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n\n The main goal of the OPTIMAL DENTAL POSTURE training is to offer efficient and most needed advice. It is based on a theoretical approach, but it is a mainly practical and completely innovative method to achieve an improved posture as a result of learning how to organise and coordinate the different body parts (head, neck, shoulders, back, hips, legs, arms, elbows, forearms, wrists and hands) as a factor in preventing MSDs associated with the dental profession.<\/p>\n\n The objectives are: Although there seems to be a consensus regarding the optimal working postures, there are some difficulties putting it into practice. Why is that? Where is the problem? Let\u2019s analyse it. The main goal of ergonomics (the scientific study of people at work) is to prevent soft tissue injuries and MSDs, caused by sudden or prolonged […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1136,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n