"Ericson and Goldie studied spinal shrinkage of three different types of chairs while performing video display unit work and found that subjects shrank more when sitting on a forward sloping chair with knee support than on a conventional chair.[3]
Drury and Francher studied the original Balans kneeling chair in 1985, concluding that overall it was "no better than conventional chairs and could be worse than well-designed conventional office chairs."[4] Lander et al. conducted another experiment in 1987 comparing the kneeling chair with a conventional chair and concluded that their experimental data "do not support the manufacturer's claim that the Balans chair is likely to decrease complaints of [lower-back pain]".[5] A 1989 study on a sample of 20 subjects concluded that the Balans chair promoted greater lumbar curvature than the "straight back chair" during relaxed sitting, typing and writing and that it could contribute to treatment of lower back injuries.[6] A more recent study from 2008 confirms that "ergonomically designed kneeling chairs set at +20 degrees inclination do maintain standing lumbar curvature to a greater extent than sitting on a standard computer chair" and suggests that "Further research with a greater number of subjects and on different chair designs is warranted."[7]"
Comments
"Ericson and Goldie studied spinal shrinkage of three different types of chairs while performing video display unit work and found that subjects shrank more when sitting on a forward sloping chair with knee support than on a conventional chair.[3]
Drury and Francher studied the original Balans kneeling chair in 1985, concluding that overall it was "no better than conventional chairs and could be worse than well-designed conventional office chairs."[4] Lander et al. conducted another experiment in 1987 comparing the kneeling chair with a conventional chair and concluded that their experimental data "do not support the manufacturer's claim that the Balans chair is likely to decrease complaints of [lower-back pain]".[5] A 1989 study on a sample of 20 subjects concluded that the Balans chair promoted greater lumbar curvature than the "straight back chair" during relaxed sitting, typing and writing and that it could contribute to treatment of lower back injuries.[6] A more recent study from 2008 confirms that "ergonomically designed kneeling chairs set at +20 degrees inclination do maintain standing lumbar curvature to a greater extent than sitting on a standard computer chair" and suggests that "Further research with a greater number of subjects and on different chair designs is warranted."[7]"
Links to references on the Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kneeling_chair