Information technologies and health
Author: Prof. M. Kochina
Specificity of people activity, who are using computer professionally, is that the base of its continuous and long-lasting visual contact with the display screen, which explains leading role of visual system in the development of tiredness, over-strain and various disease states. And besides as a lot of authors indicate visual tiredness of information technologies users develops on all levels of visual analyzer – muscular, sensor and central.
It is considered that a large amount of complaints, which is produced by the users of information technologies, on tendency to be easily tired, headache, sleep disturbance which in some degree associated with vision. When vision system works with a huge load it equal to stress receiving, if stress is long-lasting this leads to the whole organism weakness.
The problem of health safeguarding and prophylaxis of different types of pathology during the work with IT becomes more actual. With the growth of number of people who are working with the computer, a number of disease is growing as well, the reason of which as it has been found by a number of authors is professional work. The researches of PC influence on the human health, functional conditions of some organs and systems of the organism are carried out in our country as well as abroad. In spite of difference between these researches conditions (different equipment, age groups etc.), the results, as a rule, are the same. Common, the most cited medical data on the influence of work on the computer on the man confirms the development of pathologies of visual analyzer, nervous and heart-vascular systems disorder, vascular dystonia with tendency to the increase of blood pressure, disorder of brain work, endocrine disturbance, radiculitis syndrome, stipulated by osteochondrosis of cervical and lumbar spine, chronic cholecystitis, gastritis, pathology of reproductive system, the disorder of hormonal and immune status, etc.
The problems of visual system during the work with PC is leading according to the experts' opinion, however there is no common consideration on the reasons of multiple complaints of users mainly on vision nowadays doesn't exist. Since the work with the computer creates severe conditions for the visual perception of visual system, so during the professional activities the users provide a number complaints which has been gathered under the term “computer visual syndrome”. The work of IT users is connected with necessity of carrying out accurate visual tasks on the shining display in the conditions of brightness jump, flashing and image irregularity. During the work eye readoptation to different brightnesses and distances often occurs, as well as to non-optimal levels of illumination.
All this creates additional stress on visual system and promotes the development of before disease and disease conditions. Evaluation of prevalence of concrete unfavourable symptoms made by a number of authors are various which depends on working load and used research methods. However it has been determined that complaints and objective disorders associated with visual system are wide-speared ones.
The research of separate functional indexes of visual system helped us to find out character changes in them, which can be classified as visual stress and overstress, which appears with the development of condition which is similar to spasm of accommodation. But a number of users has multidirectional changes in functional indexes of visual system, which cannot be considered similarly, that provoke an interest to the research of visual system adaptation to display load.
The results of complex autolmological carried out researches has showed us theat the main indexes which define functional vision condition of IT users is brightness and contrast sensitivity as well as examples which are charactarising the condition of masculine department of visual analyzer (accommodation, convergention,etc.). Though a number of authors indicate that during a continious work in front of display there can be a cumulation of visual stress and overwork.
So according to the results of researches carried out by different authors we can make a exclusion that work with IT has negative influence on the users health. The only action we can make to fight with occurring issues with the health may be only straight following to the rules of computer work, which are covering not only organization of working place, but also prophylactics of possible issues with health and in time treatment the one we already have.











