Ergonomie – mehr als nur ein Wort | Warum gesundes Arbeiten in Ihrer Hand liegt

Working up to ten hours a day, around 1,800 hours a year, as a podiatrist on patients' feet, your most important "tools" are your hands. The concentrated work on the foot requires a lot of strength and endurance, which also strains the muscles of the arms, shoulders, and neck. Bent posture and strenuous manual work take their toll: tensions, hand, arm, and back pains are common. Long-term, there is a risk of permanent damage, such as the dreaded carpal tunnel syndrome. However, conscious and ergonomic work with your hands can counteract this.

Our hands are an anatomical masterpiece. They can grip powerfully or thread the finest yarn - everything is possible for them. The hand consists of 27 individual bones, over 30 muscles and tendons, nerves, and blood vessels. Due to their delicate structure with thin bones and little protective muscle and fat tissue, the hands are easily vulnerable. The daily high strain often leads to wear-related complaints. It's no wonder, as over the course of our lives, our fingers are bent and stretched around 25 million times.

In podiatry, you extensively use your hands. In addition to the risk of injury from sharp instruments, this strain can, in the worst case, lead to various medical conditions:

• Carpal Tunnel Syndrome arises from permanent overuse or pressure on the nerve pathways from the forearm to the hand. Women are three to four times more likely to be affected due to their often narrower wrists. The median nerve, which controls the sensory and motor abilities of the hand, is pinched in the narrowed carpal tunnel at the wrist. This can lead to tingling, numbness, and pain in the thumb and fingers and further damage.
• Arthrosis is a typical wear and tear condition on the cartilage of bone ends and can occur in any joint. Most often, the basal joint of the thumb is affected.
• Tendovaginitis, better known as tendon sheath inflammation, is mainly noticeable through pulling, stabbing pains in the wrist and fingers.

To prevent the development of such problems and medical conditions in the long run, it is all the more important for every podiatrist to focus on ergonomic work.

A Matter of Posture

The sitting posture is a challenge for the muscles of the hands, arms, and back. To prevent subsequent damage, it is worthwhile to pay great attention to ergonomic aspects when buying instruments, work chairs, and treatment chairs. A work chair that promotes dynamic sitting, a treatment chair that allows treatment while standing - these are the basics for an ergonomic daily practice.

Another important question of posture concerns the hands and instruments. Both hands are required, as one supports while the other works. We recommend always adopting a "rounded arm posture," which protects the arms and wrists. This allows for relaxed work from the side, for example, with the top nipper when shortening nails. You simultaneously stabilise the toe area with your left hand.

During work in the corner and nail fold area, you should sit as close to the foot as possible as a practitioner. Slim corner nippers makes precise and controlled cutting easier. The left hand can be used to support the foot and toes.

For particularly fine and sensitive work with a scalpel or nail instrument, you should use the so-called precision grip. The instrument is held with the thumb and index finger like a tweezer. This allows for work that requires high precision and the controlled grasping of smaller instruments, for example.

Secure Grip and Optimal Power Transmission

The choice of instruments can also have a decisive impact on hand strain. RUCK has made an innovative contribution here with the development of its own instrument series with ergonomic handles. The unique trapezoidal shape of the handles ensures a more even pressure distribution on the fingers and palm with the RUCK Trapezoid instruments:

Until now, rounded grip profiles were common with nippers and instruments. The problem: the gripping hand only lies on a hair-thin surface along the legs. Immense force must be applied to this small surface area with every action, while the lion's share of the effort literally falls short. With the patented RUCK trapezoid handles, the legs are wider and flattened on the outside, distributing the pressure over a larger surface area. The hand has more contact area and can grip more efficiently. Due to the precisely calculated leg radii, the force is optimally transmitted to the cutting edges. Every cut is easy and precise - incorrect strains are a thing of the past!

• Even pressure distribution on fingers and palm
• Instruments align with hand posture
• No slipping, no need to re-grip
• Special design of the leg radii for optimal power transmission

Discover the innovative RUCK INSTRUMENTS with Trapezoidal grip

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Everything in Hand

Whether removing calluses, treating corns, or working on thickened and mycotic nails - a podiatry drill is indispensable for your daily work in professional foot care. The handpiece in particular should fit perfectly in your hand in terms of size, weight, and shape. It should not be too heavy, which is the case, for example, with aluminium. Ideally, it should have a slim, hand-adapted shape that allows both upper grip for surface processing and spring holder grip for fine work. Only in this way can safe and ergonomic work be ensured.

Conclusion: Protect your hands! Not only through gloves and hand hygiene. The ergonomic work environment, furniture, treatment chair, practitioner chair, and especially hand-friendly instruments and podiatry drills form a comprehensive concept for easier and more ergonomic work. Your hands, as your two most important "tools," should be worth it to you. We are happy to advise you on how to improve your individual working situation ergonomically.

If you have any questions regarding the ergonomic equipment of your practice or are interested in an individual consultation appointment - also live via video - our customer consulting team is at your disposal.

E-mail: contact@hellmut-ruck.uk