The back road for the hunchbacks of the computers

Updated May 21, 2010 12:20:00

I remember a day in year seven when all the girls in my class were told to wear our bathing suits under our school uniform.

We lined up outside the school nurse's office and were called in one by one.

Inside, a specialist of sorts had us take off our t-shirts and bend over to touch our toes. She was checking the alignment of our spines, under a government initiative for the early detection of scoliosis where the spine curves in the wrong directions.

None of us had the condition and were relieved not to face years in a plastic and metal brace contraption but we did sit up straighter and push our shoulders back a little further.

In earlier times, our mothers and grandmothers were taught how to walk straight, balancing books on their heads.

With generations of kids hunched in front of keyboards for hours at a time or carrying heavy schoolbags, maybe posture needs to be back on the agenda.

As I bend over my keyboard, squinting at the tiny letters on the screen and wondering why I have a headache it occurs to me that kids could possibly benefit from those deportment classes more than previous generations.

Professor Leon Straker from Curtin University's School of Physiotherapy agrees.

He's spent 10 years examining the impact of computers on the developing bodies of children and what he's discovered is alarming.

"My nightmare is to see this whole generation as 40 to 50 year olds looking like what the current generation of 80 to 90 year olds look like."

Professor Straker's studies have shown one in five Australian children have reported computer-related soreness. One in four of them had to limit their activities and one in 10 took pain medication.

"For this generation of children the computer is going to be the work tool for them and if they can't work effectively with a computer then that shuts out lots of job opportunities for them.

"And, they'll be shut out from the main society in lots of ways because a lot of the social interaction outside of work for this generation is going to be through the computer as well."

He says children must be taught good habits about using computers.

"I've talked to children who have thought that the pain or discomfort they were experiencing was what normally happened when you used a computer."

Bean-bag effect

Developing children looking up or down at computer screens, their keyboards at the wrong height, sitting in a beanbag or belly-down on the floor while using a notebook or laptop computer can lead to serious problems.

Or worse, it could lead to permanent changes to a persons posture.

"In adolescents, those who have used a computer more have slightly more bent head and neck," Professor Straker says.

"The body changes particularly quickly during the time children are developing their muscles and bones.

"In adults there may not be such a rapid change but we're quite concerned that if people are in a poor posture in their childhood, then their muscles and bones will develop to establish that as their normal posture and it would be almost impossible for them to change that as adults."

Perth chiropractor Peter Bryner says more and more teenagers turn up with headaches or middle back and neck problems.

He puts it down to children leading a more sedentary lifestyle in front of computers.

"Inactivity can trigger problems. Teenagers are becoming less active which causes their muscles to become deconditioned and are less able to support the joints they cross, thus the joints are more liable to alignment issues.

"Some problems can be attributed to using the wrong furniture, sitting in a beanbag using a laptop with your head forward, sometimes sitting scrunched like this for hours at a time."

Mr Bryner says people must keep the muscles active to support the skeleton.


Back in the 1980s when the one-handled bag was all the rage in the school yard, it was a major cause of back problems.

But a publicity campaign by the Physiotherapy Association in Australia led to the rise of the two-strapped, good-fitting backpack.

Occupational therapist Ian Wee says when one private Perth girls school introduced laptop computers for its students, it also brought in a policy that students must use trolley-style bags so they weren't lugging extra weight in their school bags.

Professor Straker says children need to know how to look after their bodies.

"Just as they've learnt about good nutrition and diet, we should be spending more time teaching them what good posture is and why it's worth the effort."

He wants schools to give more information to students and parents about proper computer use.

Ian Wee says he is seeing an increasing number of children aged seven or eight with computer-related problems.

He says many of them could be alleviated by following some basic principles.

"Ideally, if you put your arms out in front of you, that distance should be how far away the screen should be from you, and your hands should be in the centre of the screen."

"With people using laptops and notebooks, their shoulders are hunched up around their ears. We talk about the 'comfort position'- your shoulders should be square on and your elbows are about 90 degrees and your hands are in a comfortable position on the keyboard."

Mr Wee says while occupational therapists make regular trips into workplaces to help employees set up workspaces correctly, it's regrettable that little attention is placed on children and how they use computers.

His private practice donates time to local schools to run programs with children and teachers and says ideally more OT specialists would do the same.

"We could make quite a big change, not just at a local school level, but really in the long-term in the next generation."

So, maybe we don't need students walking around with books on their heads... maybe they just need to know how to use their notebook in a more ergonomic fashion.

Topics: family-and-children, community-and-society, karratha-6714, albany-6330, wa, broome-6725, bunbury-6230, geraldton-6530, kalgoorlie-6430, perth-6000

First posted May 21, 2010 12:00:00