With literally thousands of office chairs on the market, it must be confusing to decide which chair to get. As a practising Occupational Therapist, I found it overwhelming upon graduating to decide which chair would be most suitable to a client. As I gathered knowledge about brands and models within that brand, it became a bit easier. So for somebody with no knowledge about ergonomic chairs, what is my best advice? First is to decide how much time you will be sitting down. If your workday is less than 2 hours of total siting, then an ergonomic chair may not be that important. However, if you sit for 2 hours or more a day, the chair should meet 4 basic requirements. These being: a good lumbar support (which is adjustable), a waterfall design cushioned seat pan (also adjustable), a height adjustable seat, and supportive armrests. Before we get into details on these 4 features, I should mention that in my experience there are 2 basic chair designs which I refer to as an Upright Chair and or Reclined Chair. An example of a Upright Chair would be the following:
As you can see, the back (though adjustable on this model) has a strong lumbar support and would maintain a very upright sitting posture where the hip and angle doesn’t change. I find these chairs good for people with upper back and neck problems where it is important for there ears to be in total alignment with their shoulders.
In contrast, the reclined chair is designed to “open up” the hips. Do do this the person leans back in sitting and the back itself will move depending on force. A spring (with tension adjustment) will bring the user back into an upright position at will. Though it is difficult to show this in a picture, one example would be the following:
I find the reclined chair to be good for somebody who has low back pain and requires frequent postural changes in sitting.
But within each basic category (e.g., Upright or Reclined) there are still lots more to choose from. Pain, computer demands, your size, and other factors are important to analyze. For example, most ergonomic chairs will fit the “averaged sized user” or between the say the 20th and 80th percentile of body shapes. In my experience, at least here in Newfoundland and Labrador, there are only a handful of chairs to fit the very small and the same for the very large. This is where an ergonomic assessment is vital in specifying the perfect ergonomic chair. So if you sit for longer than 2 hours in a day, and experience pain, a proper ergonomic assessment is important to determine the need for an ergonomic chair and the possibility of other equipment and / or behavioural changes. My philosophy is to fit the workplace to the user. Nobody should work in pain!