• In order to analyze the Cumulative Trauma Disorders (CTDs) that affect thousands of people as a result of long working days using unsuitable furniture, national and international experts gathered together at the “Pensamiento Complejo, Ergonomía de Concepción y Creatividad” conference that was held at Universidad de Santiago.

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National and international experts gathered together at the “Pensamiento Complejo, Ergonomía de Concepción y Creatividad” conference held at Universidad de Santiago. Its purpose was to analyze the Cumulative Trauma Disorders (CTDs) that affect many people as a result of long working days using unsuitable furniture.

The activity was organized by the Industrial Design Technology program and the National Chair in Ergonomics of the Department of Industrial Engineering of Universidad de Santiago.

Ergonomics

Thousands of people work every day in poorly furnished physical spaces that are not always the best in relation to the number of working hours. Most of the time, they are using computers.

In the activity, the relation between furniture and physical postures was analyzed. Cumulative Trauma Disorders (CTDs)- which involve muscle and bone problems- were the focus of the conference and the experts showed the contribution of ergonomics to designing suitable environments for people.

Poor postures while sitting on a chair, the constant contact with some tools, the effort to lift weight or repeated actions (like typing on the computer) can cause these disorders.

María José Araya, architect, ergonomist and professor at the Department of Management Technologies, explained that this is a very important matter, as “long working hours demand the use of ‘neuro-sensory motor’ energy and usually some tolerance thresholds are crossed for the lack of spaces for resting and for leisure and recuperation activities, causing CTDs, with different levels of severity.”

With this activity, “we would like to strengthen international networks with other higher education centers, like Elisava, to address disability and socio-labor inclusion issues from the “Design for all” concept in the National Chair in Ergonomics of the Department of Industrial Engineering of Universidad de Santiago.

Lecturers

In the activity, Giselle Golcovic, who is a graphic designer of Universidad de Chile and has a Master’s degree in Education from Universidad UCINF, gave the presentation “Pensamiento Complejo y Creatividad en Leonardo da Vinci”.

The architect Antonio Bustamante, ergonomist and professor at the Barcelona School of Design and Engineering (Elisava, in Spanish), the first school of design founded in Spain, presented “El hombre de Vitruvio, el de Leonardo y el de Castaño”. In his conclusions, he referred to the importance of understanding users in movement, a viewpoint that differs from conventional anthropometry, which approaches humans as static beings.

José Miguel Araya, industrial civil engineer, ergonomist and professor at Universidad de Santiago analyzed the works presented from an ergonomics point of view 

It is important to understand ergonomics as a key element at designing office and home furniture in order to help people to prevent posture-related diseases

Professor María José Araya said that this type of activity gives students at programs like Industrial Engineering, Design and Architecture the possibility of learning about these matters before they leave the university.

Translated by Marcela Contreras