Many know Mike Sjoeblom as the innovative vintner who creates a sparkling wine from cabernet sauvignon grapes, but before he started his enterprise here in the valley, he had another career well underway as the president of EuroOffice, a company based in Sweden and devoted to developing and selling ergonomically-sound products.

Although he and his family now make their home in Napa, he’s kept a “healthy” interest in ergonomics, and the entrepreneur has just recently received an award at the National Ergonomic Conference held in Las Vegas for one of his products, a new design for a computer mouse, a “center pointing device” he calls Trackbar E-motion.

When you think about it, he said, today’s personal computers barely resemble the first products that were introduced in the 1980s. “Everything has changed,” Sjoeblom said, “except the mouse.”

Sjoeblum said the method we’ve all become accustomed to — the right-hand swivel of that little rounded thing — takes its toll on frequent users, those who use a computer more than five hours a day. “Prolonged use of conventional mouse leads to everything from carpal tunnel syndrome to migraine headaches,” he said. “In Sweden we call it ‘mouse arm syndrome.’”

Rather than using one hand repetitively, he said, “you should have your hands in the center.”

Sjoeblom launched his first center pointing device in 1997 and it gained a stamp of approval from TCO, which, he explained, is a  Swedish organization “that puts standards on electronics and ergonomic use that have become world standards.”

The device, little known in the U.S., has become widely used in Europe, particularly in health-conscious Sweden. Sjoeblom and his family use the Trackbar at home, and he said, his children now find the old mouse cumbersome when they use computers at school.

The Trackbar, about 12 inches by 4 inches, fits in front of a key board and is controlled by both hands using a rollbar. It takes some getting used to, Sjoeblom said, and several Register staffers who tried it, said it initially slowed them down.

“Users find it uncomfortable at first,” he said, “but studies show it takes three days to change a habit. After a month you don’t want to get rid of it.”

Sjoeblom said he developed the device using a “benchmark” of doctors from 21 universities in 19 countries, who provide feedback. “When I have their comments I know how it should be,” he said. The sleek design comes from an industrial designer in Silicon Valley, and the newest model is available in a range of colors.

Right now Sjoeblom said the greatest fans of the device are  “reactive” users who are suffering pain and “will do anything to get away from it.”

He said, “I get hundreds of e-mails and phone calls from people who were in pain, and after using this device for weeks, the pain is gone and they think it’s magic, but it’s just this simple change.”

Sjoeblom’s goal is now to reach “proactive” users —  to get people to try the trackbar before they’re in pain. “The awareness is not here yet,” he said.

Countries like his native Sweden are far ahead of the U.S. when it comes to promoting healthy work spaces, Sjoeblom observed. “To give it a picture, people-oriented security is a priority in Sweden. We have a different way of thinking. … Volvo didn’t invent the seatbelt as a sales pitch but because people died (in automobile crashes). It’s a culture. The rest of the world was in the dark ages for ergonomics when Sweden was moving ahead.

“We also got the problems first,” he added.

In office design, he said, “common sense is what is practiced the least … some things can be changed in 10 minutes.

“In the US the driving factor is lawsuits,” he said, predicting that in the future there will be a “first class action suit for mouse arm syndrome.”

California is not far behind Sweden in ergonomic awareness, he said, noting that he has worked with companies that routinely weigh and measure new employees to fit them for the right chair and table. The National Ergonomic Conference, where the audience voted for the Trackbar Emotion as “best product,” was attended by representatives from OSHA and Workmans’ Compensation and health industries as well as companies like Yahoo and Google.

For all the attention his Trackbar is garnering, Sjoeblom said, his motivation remains the same. “Every person I can get off of medication — that is the biggest reward of all.”

The Trackbar Emotion sells for $99. Information about the product is available at the Web site, www.eurooffice.com