Ocular surface area and human eye blink frequency during VDU work: the effect of monitor position and task

The purpose of this study was to investigate how the ocular surface area (OSA) and the eye blink frequency (BF) are affected by a high versus a low-monitor position during visual display unit (VDU) work with varying cognitive demands. In a balanced randomized (2 × 2) design ten healthy subjects (five males, five females) completed two different tasks on the VDU in a simulated office environment (23°C and 30–35% relative humidity); an active task with demands on vision and hand-eye coordination, and a passive task. Two monitor positions were used: high (the monitors’ upper edge at the same height as the subjects’ eyes) and low (lowered by 25° and perpendicular to gaze angle). Each task lasted 10 min. An OSA-proxy was measured from video recordings, and BF was sampled by electrooculography. The effect of lowering the gaze angle by 25° decreased the OSA-proxy significantly (P < 0.01) during the active task, indicating that a low position of the monitor may be preferable even though the BF also decreased. Overall, the OSA-proxy was 6% higher during the active task compared to the passive while BF during the active task was 69% lower than during the passive task. The low BF during the active task was succeded by a burst with high BF after cessation of the active task, indicating a compensatory blinking process. This stresses that interchange of work tasks with different cognitive load is as important as the monitor position in the prevention of visual and musculoskeletal disorders.