Prevention - Between Attacks: Furniture (Part 1)

The design of furniture makes a great difference to our comfort. This do not just mean chairs and tables but include all the fittings and fixtures in our homes, our cars and our work. A lot is known about the effect of the positions and types of seats and equipment on efficiency in industry: the study of it is known as ergonomics; this knowledge is valuable to employers because, even apart from any other consideration, it pays in terms of hard cash to have workers more comfortable and therefore more efficient. There is less rheumatic trouble caused by conditions provided at work than is cased by conditions in our private lives, our cars and our homes. Things can be made much easier in the home if you are prepared to give thought in planning what you need and time in choosing it. To a great extent the furniture and fittings can be chosen to fit you instead of you having to fit them. By doing this you can save yourself the strains that make your rheumatism worse and you can make the rheumatism that you have more tolerable.

Kitchen

Take the kitchen for instance. The sink is a cause of many aches in healthy backs and shoulders as well as rheumatics ones. It may be an easy job to alter its height; if it is not you can put a block either under the wash bowl or under yourself.

Kitchen cupboards made by many firms can be brought an inch or more shorter than usual and any cupboard can be raised if you need it higher. The ironing board can be another cause of aches but many of them now are adjustable for height or can be permanently set to a different height. In fact, more and more women now are sitting down to iron.

Living Room

In the living room, make sure that the so-called 'comfy' chairs live up to their name; so many of them are too gar from front to back and are too low. Have a look at great grandfather's chairs. These old chairs were evolved after centuries of trial and error by carpenters who wanted chairs, not only for their customers, but also fro their friends and for themselves. They wanted chairs that would keep them comfortable during the long dark hours by the fireside before the days of electric light. They were far less concerned with fashion than with the plain facts of human anatomy in contact with wood, webbing and horsehair. The finest seats made for public use were those in the second-class Pullman carriages of the now departed Bournemouth Belle; the mahogany creaked as it was pulled up the hills north of Winchester and the gilt no longer glittered, but the seats were comfortable.

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