Short Interventions to Prevent Trapezius Muscle Fatigue in Computer Work

30 healthy adults without chronic neck pain participated in a laboratory study designed to simulate two full workdays of computer work. Within each session, participants performed five 50-min working activities separated by 10-min breaks: i) Use a computer keyboard to type a text presented on the left side of the screen; ii) do the typing task with the desk height set10 cm above elbow height; iii) play the computer game Spider Solitaire implemented in Windows 10; iv) Stroop test (This test consists of reading the name of a color whose text is in a color different from the name. The color name was then selected from a multiple-choice panel displaying color names; v) the same online puzzle game was presented to all participants. Assembling the puzzle was performed by drag and drop actions. The work periods were not disrupted (on the "control day") whereas two short interruptions of 5-min were introduced at 1/3 and 2/3 of each working period on the "intervention day". During these interruptions, participants were asked to perform "muscle disrupting/relaxing" activities. For each experimental session a 30-min lunch break took place between the third and the fourth work periods. The specific sequence of work activity type and disrupting/relaxing activities was randomized across participants; however, for each participant the order of work activities remained the same for the two experimental sessions (control and intervention days). The order of control and intervention days was also randomized between participants.

A set of six measures were performed at specific time intervals during each experiment: before the first work activity, before and after lunch, immediately and 1 hour after the fifth (last) work activity: i) upper trapezius activation, assessed through the temporal EMG profile recorded by a single bipolar signal; and ii) through the spatio-temporal distribution of EMG activity detected by a 2D array of electrodes (64 channels); iii) muscle fatigue, quantified by changes in electrically induced muscle twitch force signals, iv) isometric performance, v) dynamic performance; iii) cognitive and physical load and stress level. In addition, personality traits (anxiety level), perceived workload and musculoskeletal symptoms were evaluated as covariates.