Ergonomics and Jewelry Manufacturing – Pain Prevention
Safety and Ergonomics
Your hands, eyes, and upper body are your most important and vulnerable tools. Jewelry making creates a situation where you use these tools in an extremely intensive way.
Small movements are repeated many times, and this repetitive use of the hands with the same positions and movements can cause injury, pain, and numbness. Incorrect or careless positioning or use of tools can cause you to lose the ability to work for weeks or months at a time to give them time to heal. A little care before and during your work period will help keep your hands, eyes, and upper body healthy.
get ready to work
Move your hands gently for a couple of minutes before starting work. Bend, flex, twist, extend, and straighten your hands. Wear eye protection when using power tools or torches or when working with long wires.
Posture and Ergonomics
Good ergonomics when you’re sated will help your neck, shoulders, arms, wrists, and fingers when working for long periods of time. Make sure your seat height is correct for your leg length. Use a footrest if necessary. Support your back adequately and match the height of your table to the height of your seat.
Keep your hands and arms warm while you work to keep them relaxed Position lighting where you can see your work without shadows or craning your neck.
Do not rest your elbows or arm below the elbow joint on the table without a pad. This can cause compression of the nerves in that area and create numbness in the outer two fingers of the hand.
Training
Try to schedule a rest period every hour for a few minutes. You can do hand, eye, and neck, shoulder, and back exercises to keep you mobile and comfortable while you work.
For your hands, use the prayer hands exercise. Bring your fingertips together and gently bring your palms together. Use fingertip touches to touch each fingertip to the tip of the thumb, one at a time. Stretch your fingers out like a starfish by reaching as far as you can with each fingertip. Rotate your wrists very gently with your fists bent. Stretch your hands back to the tips of your fingers with the other hand. Bend your hand forward and use one hand to gently pull your thumb toward your wrist. Do all of these exercises gently but often to help your hands.
Your eyes can get dry when you don’t blink as often as you should, so blink slowly to help your eyes get moist. Close your eyes slowly, and while they are closed, look up, down, and to the sides. Since you work very close most of the time, change the focus of your eyes by doing the following; focus on your finger and move it away slowly. Zoom your finger in and then focus on something across the room.
The intense work of jewelry making can be hard on the neck, shoulders, and back. Exercise them regularly during your rest periods. These exercises must be performed standing up.
Exercise your shoulders to relieve tension and pain. Use the shoulder blade touch. While sitting up straight with your shoulders back and head up, bring your shoulder blades together and hold for a count of five. Shoulder rolls are performed by holding the arms and rotating the shoulders, first one and then the other, forward, then back while moving the arms naturally following the movement of the shoulders.
Neck rolls are performed by placing one hand on top of the head to support the weight of the head and gently moving the head forward, then to the right, back, and left. Support your head during all of these movements.
Your back can benefit if you lift your shoulders and bend your back for a count of three, arch your back for a count of three, and then straighten your back. Also, extend your arms and rotate your hips.
Pressure points and massage
The tension in your hands can be relieved by applying pressure with your fingers to the base of the ball of your thumb. You can also apply pressure to the base of each finger. Lower arm and lower back massage can also help relieve tension.
Splints and immobilization
Your doctor may recommend splints or immobilization during certain periods of the day. Even sleeping with splints on can help. Using splints, ice, and pain relievers may be able to help your situation with rest and exercise while you work, but check with your doctor or physical therapist about these techniques.