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Introduction: Standing workstation has become popular in recent years as a better option to alleviate the adverse effects of long hours of sitting which is associated with neck and back pain in office workers. The curved keyboard has also been proposed as an ergonomic solution for elbow and wrist problems related to intensive typing on the standard flat keyboard.

This study examined the effects of combining the standing workstation and curved keyboard, versus the conventional seated office desk and flat keyboard.

Methods: This was a case-control quasi-experimental study with eight males in chronic neck pain group and eight males in the control group. Each participant performed the 4 tasks for 10 mins each. The 4 task conditions are:

1. Sitting Workstation + Curved Keyboard
2. Sitting Workstation + Standard keyboard
3. Standing Workstation + Curved keyboard
4. Standing Workstation + Standard keyboard

The typing task was standardised to copy-typing a children’s story and the order of the 4 conditions was randomised. A 5 minute rest break was given between tasks. Surface electromyography was measured on 4 muscles bilateraly: cervical erector spinae (CES), upper trapezius (UT), lower trapezius (LT) and thoracic erector spinae (TES). Immediately before and after typing tasks under each of the four conditions, subjects were asked to verbally rate the degree of neck pain on a numeric scale from 0 to 10 (0 no pain; 10 most pain).

Results: Results showed that standing workstation was associated with significantly decreased muscle activity in most muscles in both neck pain and control groups, with the exception of right CES. Decrease in right CES was observed but this was not statistically significant. The reduction in muscle activity was most apparent in LT and TES muscles when comparing data between sitting and standing. This is showing evidence that working in a standing posture would require less spinal muscle activation to maintain the posture, which would reduce the risk for neck and back pain related to long hours of office work.

Muscle activity during the use of curved keyboard was found to show a generally downward trend in all muscles compared to that recorded in using the standard flat keyboard. However, this was not statistically significant. Comparing the Neck Pain and Control Groups, they showed similar patterns of muscle activity in the 4 conditions.

Discussion: The present study has provided some objective evidence to support the positive effects of using a standing workstation compared to seated one for performing computer work.

Typing with the curved keyboard was also associated with reduced muscle activity in the spinal postural muscles compared to typing on the standard flat keyboard.

The present study involved a short-duration typing task only. Future study should examine the office workers’ muscle activity with the standing workstation or the curved keyboard in their actual office environment. This will provide more concrete evidence on the benefits of these ergonomic interventions on reducing the problem of work-related neck and back pain in office workers.

Conclusion: The present study provided some preliminary evidence of the benefits of standing workstation and typing with a curved keyboard.