Dr. Ergo Impact on making your work environment healthy

Did you ever experience swollen legs and ankles after a long air flight, prolonged standing on public transportation, or following a lengthy car ride?  There is more to the story than the fact that your shoes that feel too tight. The pooling of fluid-lymphedema- in your legs is not healthy and is brought on by inactivity such as continued standing or uninterrupted sitting as more venous blood stores in your legs, ankles and feet than is returned to your heart. A common denominator is absence of muscle function so the peripheral pumps aren’t doing their job because muscles aren’t contracting.

The troubling phenomenon is frequent in any workplace environment and more common in those who carry too much weight, on certain medications or with varicose veins. It is also seen in the setting wherein the elastic at the top of your socks is too tight. Not necessarily a worrisome situation although certainly undesirable, in those who do swell, there is always the possibility of a blood clot with a marked increase frequency in those who sit or stand for prolonged, uninterrupted periods. That swelling may be accompanied by increased risk of infection in Diabetics or an entity known as stasis ulcers in the worst case scenario.

Now there are ways of almost eliminating that workplace nuisance, actually problem, by altering your work-station to allow for a better ergonomic environment. Stand up desks have been introduced into the work place and coming soon is the specially designed LeanRite designed to avoid prolonged standing or continual sitting while you maintain the highest level of creative productivity.

Assume if you will that because of your problematic back your doctor has advised you to use a standup desk. The prototype LeanRite I am using allows me to comply with my doctor’s advice and at the same time, realize the benefits of leaning, moving and changing positions instead of being put at risk for the negative effects of prolonged standing or sitting alone. After consultation with orthopedic surgeons, neurosurgeons and experts in workplace ergonomics during the design process, I find it a marvelous contribution to the organic office and home workplace environment.