Dental office ergonomics: how to reduce stress factors and increase efficiency

Ergonomics, the science that studies human stress and strain related to activities, has one primary objective-to prevent work related musculoskeletal disorders, or symptoms that aggravate these disorders. Smart business owners have adopted the practice of ergonomics as an integral element in their ongoing strategies to increase productivity and ensure reduced workers' compensation liability. In British Columbia, however, potentially expensive ergonomic draft regulations created by the province's Workers' Compensation Board in 1993, have been put on hold. These ergonomic standards-described as the stiffest in the world -were to have been implemented across the province in early 1995. Nonetheless, ergonomic practices are alive and thriving in Canadian businesses that are devoted to ensuring a reduction in work-related injuries and salvaging potentially lost productivity. Although it is difficult to document lost productivity, Ontario's Workers' Compensation Board reported that it received 707 repetitive stress injury claims from office workers in 1992, with a per person cost of $7,703. In addition to these costs, each claimant took about 93 days off work. In dentistry, poor working habits, along with repetitive tasks, such as scaling and root planing, contribute greatly to musculoskeletal disorders, stress claims and lost productivity. Our tendency is to adapt awkward and illogical physical postures to access the oral cavity. The key objective for clinicians is to find a position that allows them to achieve optimum access, visibility, comfort and control at all times. With the professional goal to deliver the highest quality of care for a reasonable profit, the practice of ergonomics becomes a core focus in determining how to achieve practice success with less stress.