Eyestrain increasingly a problem for employees
Computers, lighting are prime culprits
Surveys of computer operators indicate that vision and other eye problems are the health-related complaints reported most frequently, affecting between 70% and 75% of all workers.1,2 In fact, a growing body of research indicates that when it comes to employee health problems, the "eyes" have it.
It appears to be a combination of relatively new office innovations and old technology that are contributing to these eye health problems. The culprits: computers and office lighting.
"A number of scientists and leading ergonomists believe that of the many interdependent factors that contribute to a healthy office environment, lighting is the most important,"3 reports Steelcase Inc., the Grand Rapids, MI-based furniture manufacturer, in it’s 1994 report, Lighting in the Healthy Office.
"If people can see better, they feel better," adds Nicholas Harmon, president of Stamford, CN-based Verilux, a lighting manufacturer. "They will be happier, and out of work less often. There’s even some [scientific] discussion that poor vision can affect the immune system." (For more information on how lighting can affect employee health, see story, p. 54.)
By creating a more natural environment, says Harmon, you can reduce eyestrain, glare, fatigue, and stress associated with ordinary lighting.
"The fluorescent lighting we are sitting under is virtually unchanged from the ’40s and ’50s," says Harmon. This "traditional" lighting uses bulbs that are very rich in the color yellow the color to which the human eye is most sensitive, he explains. "The eye tends to filter out excess color or light, so the pupil tightens up like a clenched fist. Just like a muscle, when the pupil has been tightened all day long, it causes eyestrain, headaches, and fatigue."
Whatever your current lighting scheme, there are steps you can take to help ensure you are providing the best possible working environment for your employees. (See "Checklist for Healthy Lighting," p. 55.)
Using lighting with too much yellow in it is, in effect, "light pollution," Harmon claims.
Harmon recommends a balanced, full-spectrum, lighting. "It has all the components of the spectrum in a balance similar to natural light," he explains. "What you try to do is reproduce natural light indoors similar to an overcast sky, about midday in early summer. After all, our bodies are designed to operate outside; it’s only been the last 100 years that we’ve come inside."
How much more costly is full-spectrum lighting? Verilux’s products, says Harmon, are about two to four times as costly as average light bulbs, "but that comes to less than one penny per day per light bulb," he says. The return on investment? "Better productivity and improved morale," he says.
Focusing his attention on the high-tech office, Dennis Ruskin, OD, FAAO, has used his training to battle computer eye strain, and particularly computer vision syndrome (CVS). Ruskin is a consulting optometrist to Toronto-based Eye2Eye, a company that develops products to alleviate computer eye strain,.
"Unfortunately, [CVS] is not something that has come into the mainstream [awareness]," he says. "The syndrome itself is relatively newly defined, and with reference to computers, unfortunately there has not been a lot of attention paid to anything except carpal tunnel syndrome."
CVS can include such symptoms as blurred near vision, occasional blurred distance vision, headaches, changes in color perception, tearing, and neck, shoulder and back pain, says Ruskin.
To improve awareness in this area, Ruskin has co-developed a self-administered software program designed to help employees minimize the ill effects of heavy computer usage. Areas addressed include:
• Regular breaks away from the computer screen. These allow the eye to be at physiological rest.
• Optimizing screen color combinations. Being able to personalize your screen by selecting the colors you want can give you optimal visual comfort and a sense of control over your work environment.
• Reminders to use eye drops. Blinking helps maintain a layer of tears over our eyes. Employees who do a lot of computer work have remarkably reduced blink rates, which leads to a drying of the cornea, resulting in red, burning, sandy, gritty, and tired eyes. Eye drops help alleviate these problems.
• Use of antistatic cleaning solution. This helps eliminate dust build-up on the screen.
• An orthoptic home training technique. This improves the eyes’ ability to view the monitor by enhancing ocular muscle coordination.
"The ocular visual area has not been looked at as a primary source of lost productivity," Ruskin concedes, "but from a selfish point of view, doesn’t an employer want a happier, healthier employee who will give him greater output and less down time?"
Ruskin is quick to point out that neither his software product, nor Harmon’s lighting represent a quick fix or a total solution to employee eye health problems. He does, however, see the problems they address as interrelated. "Lighting is definitely one of the primary causes of the symptoms of CVS that is related to environmental factors," he asserts. "Where you can get into trouble is if you take just one slant, and say, This will do it all.’ You really need to take a more global approach to problems affecting eye health." (For more information on taking good care of your eyes, see story in the Health & Well-Being supplement.)
Beyond the health factor, there is a strong bottom-line incentive for improving employee eye health as well. One recent study concluded that in 1994, it cost U.S. industry about $1.15 billion for eye examinations and computer-specific glasses for computer users.4
[Editors Note: For more information on CVS, contact: Dennis Ruskin, OD, FAAO, Finch-Midland Optometric Clinic, 4190 Finch Avenue East, Suite 106, Scarborough, Ont. M1S4T7. Telephone: (416) 293-4309. For more information on the self-care eye health program, Solutions in Sight, visit the Eye2Eye web site at: http://www.eye2eye.com.]
References
1. Smith MJ, Cohen BGR, Stemmerjohn LW Jr., et al. An investigation of health complaints and job stress in video display operations. Human Factors 1981; 23:387-400.
2. Dain SJ, McCarthy AK, Chan-Ling T, et al. Symptoms in VDU operators. American Journal of Optometric Physiology 1988; 65:162-167.
3. Benoit R, Office Health: Lighting in the Healthy Office. Steelcase, Inc., Grand Rapids, MI, 1994.
4. Sheedy, JE, OD, PhD. The bottom line on fixing computer-related vision and eye problems. Journal of the American Optometric Association 1996; 67:512-517.
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