Slashdot Mirror
Keyboarding Love Or Keyboarding Pain
flyingember writes "Over on Ars, they've done the ultimate review for anyone who sits at a computer more than someone on AOL does, the IMAK Smart Gloves. These gloves are supposed to both prevent and help ease pain associated with conditions such as carpal tunnel syndrome. Read it to see if our code monkey enjoys the gloves or if they're just something for him to throw at the gawking crowd."
I had a moderate case of tendonitis from keyboarding and mousing about 2 years ago, and this thing does work.
I like the fact that you can still bend your wrist as much as you want, but you are gently reminded that you are bending, so you eventually stop doing it. It's not constricting like those braces.
how bout a link to the actual article?
I just stopped wearing a wrist brace to protect my thumb after a motorcycle accident (and no, airbags wouldn't have done much for me), but all it seemed to do is force my wrist straight at the expense of the rest of my body. Some decent form and posture seems like a much better way to help yourself.
At least you are making a claim about Dvorak that perhaps makes sense (contrary to popular belief, Dvorak layout does not lead to superior typing speeds - see this) - has anyone researched whether Dvorak would help with RSI's? No offence to the parent, but I can't just go on one anecodote here :)
I personally can't switch as I need to be able to sit down on anyones PC and just start typing... I don't seem to get RSI pain at all, but I'm sure it will start in a few years, given I am a gamer and a programmer...
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
Correct, most "Dvorak is faster than Qwerty" claims are not based on fact. Theoretically, though, your fingers travel less so perhaps you can type faster. I haven't coded Qwerty in a long time so I do not know what speeds are, but I am confident I am no slower.
Most RSI help claims are, of course, anecdotal, but from what I have seen virtually everyone who has switched has seen vast improvements in comfort - that I can't ignore.
A short list of pros and cons are here:
http://www.mwbrooks.com/dvorak/procon.html
Note that no claims of speed superiority are made - most speed claims are made by uninformed converts and not by evangelists.
Thanks,
--
Matt
1. Over in Ars Technica's forum someone named Figa made an excellent point:
Figa (quoted above) then proceeded to explain why other people's advice was bad and then gave a 15 point treatment plan :)
That said, if you're going to self-medicate with gadgetry, my vote would be to check out Kinesis's Contoured Keyboards
The keys are arranged in lines in pits in the shell of the key board. Your fingers naturally droop into the pits and then move forward and backward (rarely to the sides) to depress the appropriate key.
Claimed to make the activity of typing simulate CTS reducing exercises. I have a co-worker who has one and loves it.
maybe if you studied medicine you would know that splinting the wrist works to relieve tendonitis.
My solution to wrist pain has been to use a break reminder program like xwrits to remind me to take a 5 minute break for every hour of computer use. I would use those five minutes to get out of my chair and walk around for a while, so not only was I resting my hands, but my whole body as well.
It's also a good idea to look out the window at something distant while taking your breaks, you can avoid eye strain by not focusing on something 18 inches from your head all the time.
JWZ has some good advice about this stuff on his site which I found very useful.
A buddhist walks up to a hot dog stand and says ``Make me one with everything.''
At the risk of being too serious for this crowd - three things cause hand pain commonly (mis-)diagnosed as carpal tunnel 1) neck problems - very specific diagnosis, but think of it as a pinched nerve 2) shoulder problems - "thoracic outlet syndrome" now more often called "neurovascular compression syndrome" primarily due to holding arm up and/or out, as in mousing - specifically spasm of the subscapularis muscle - push your fingers up under your shoulder blade at your armpit - it will elicit the same pain 3) forearm muscle problems - primarily due to prolonged forearm twisting (screwdriving, etc.) and sometimes sports. These things seem to be carpal tunnel to diagnosticians (read most MD's). They need professional treatment and/or work position changes or they will get worse. If you have true carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS), the gloves in question will ease the pain at the expense of healing, since the typical nighttime hand pain in CTS is due to blood flow and the healing process. For CTS, weights or rubber bands used to strengthen the extensor muscles (back of the hands and arms) will fix many cases of true CTS. Don't let CTS go untreated as it can become permanent if it remains uncorrected. #1 priority in all cases should be workplace changes to prevent damage.
Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a critical component of spiritual devotion. Jon Krakauer
For those of you too cheap to cough up the cash, an excellent weapon against RSI is simple exercises. Every five to ten minutes of typing, stretch your fingers as wide as you can for a couple seconds, then clench your fists as tight as you can for a couple seconds. Repeat a few times.
This works best as a preventative measure, but also helps lessen the pain if you already have RSI problems
I am a sig. I wish I were a more creative sig, but I am not. I guess everyone has something to strive for.
I was having problems with numbness and a little pain in one wrist. I switched to MS Natural Keyboard at home and work and I don't have the problem any longer. I think it's because the Natural keyboard keeps my wrists straight whereas before they would be canted to the left and right (using a "normal" keyboard").
Only if you have the time to adjust to it...
I tried switching to Dvorak once, but I was spending like 4-5 hours a day at the computer, doing homework, talking on IM, etc. The result was a lot of tension and a lot of pain, and after a month there hadn't been a significant improvement so I gave it up.
I might try it again someday if I could restrict my computer use to half an hour of typing practice each day, for 3-4 weeks (like that will ever happen)
I got it from the doctor because of carpal tunnel like problems. (Insurance paid for a paid, even.) It has two velcro straps (which are tied to the glove kind of like shoelaces) which hold it on the arm. When I wear the glove, zero pain or problem whatsoever.
If I wear the glove for a few months time, all my problems disappear. But they'll eventually come back if I stop wearing them. So, now adays, I wear it as a preventative measure, and it really works great.
HINT: You might want to wash it on a regular basis, and you might want to have a backup pair for while it is being washed. Or two to switch between on a regular basis.
How is it?
Training tools for learing this fanciful new keyboard layout? Anyone? Anyone?
Want to switch Ctrl and Caps Lock? Make your h's into m's or 6's into 9's? Be sure to check out jwz's XKeyCaps. You can rewire your primary input device to your heart's content. From the site...
xkeycaps is a graphical front-end to xmodmap. It opens a window that looks like a keyboard; moving the mouse over a key shows what KeySyms and Modifier bits that key generates. Clicking on a key simulates KeyPress/KeyRelease events on the window of your choice. It is possible to change the KeySyms and Modifiers generated by a key through a mouse-based interface. This program can also write an input file for xmodmap to recreate your changes in future sessions.
Nice home page Jamie. (BTW This is the guy behind everybody's favorite collection of screen hacks, XScreenSaver, the DNA Lounge and an explanation of cut and paste in X, among other things .)
I often type for over 12 hours a day--not 12 hour workdays, but 12 hours of actually banging at the keyboard. I used to get really bad cramps in my forearms and shoulders that would totally incapacitate me for a day or two at a time. Because I'm too poor to afford any high-tech gadgets (split keyboards and such), I had to come up with a cheap solution.
What I did was to put a four books on the table and use one of those "natural" keyboards that have the keys at an angle. The four books are positioned in a way that the top two hang over the base of the keyboard, and nearly butt right up against the space bar. The books are angled so the base of my palms sits on the corners, and my wrists end up being perfectly level and aligned with my forearms. Also, the books are fairly thick, so my fingers kind of "hang down" onto the keys. These are large (long and wide) hardbacks, large enough so my elbows are also resting on them, and the net result is to take all of the strain off of my forearms and shoulders.
Since my shoulders no longer have to do any work to hold my arms in place, and my forearms no longer have to do any work to maneuver my wrists, all of the pain has disappeared. I've done several consecutive 16-hour days of coding without feeling much of anything at all, and have never even felt close to the point where I'm too sore to type.
I actually suspect that a lot of the so-called "RSI" is not so much due to repition as it is due to the stress of holding ones arms and wrists in a certain position for hours at a time. If you've ever tried to hold a couple of heavy books with your arms perfectly straight for any length of time you'll know that the pain eventually becomes fiery and unbearable, and is quite similar to the pain you feel after several days of coding. By simply supporting your forearms and wrists with something other than your muscles, you do away with all of the strain, and in my case this was all that was needed.
Uhm... Just one correction: in Half-Life, you can bind your controls to anything you'd like. Unreal Tournament is the same.
I think most modern games allow you to rebind your keys; everyone has their own "perfect" layout and they want it just a bit different.
I think what he is saying is binding to the 'Q' key in Half-Life will bind to the top left physical key regardless of whether you are in Qwerty or Dvorak mode.
Yes, I do roll out this story of mine every time, but here we go again.
I switched to Dvorak layout AND touch typing from being a very fast (70wpm) 6-finger-looking-at-the-keyboard-qwerty guy.
Not only that, but I switched right in the middle of a big VB project I was working on.
For the first week it was amusing. I would have typed out half of a word and I'd be staring at the screen going "L- now where is it? erm erm erm- ah! Now, S.... erm..."
I know that it would have better to do some sort of typing exercises or something to make the switch but I didn't want to be typing everything else in qwerty and getting myself confused.
The results, after a couple of months were astonding: my RSI-like symptoms were gone and only come back slightly when I am forced to use a non-split keyboard. (Note that I can actually type faster these days on a non-split keyboard but it sure as hell isn't good for me).
I am now up to about 70 wpm again which is only the same as before, I admit, but typing is a lot more comfortable and of course I don't have to look at the keyboard as I type, which increased my score in Typing of the Dead no end. (By the way, I totally recommend this game to people who want to practice Dvorak).
I was amazed at myself in the end- not for the fact that I had got rid of my RSI-like symptoms, but because I had managed to achieve the same typing speed after only about 5 months that I had had with my old technique, which had been built up over about 20 years.
graspee
I don't lift weights, but I'm a martial artist. When you train with weapons (nunchaku, jo and sword in my case), your wrists need to get stronger. After some weeks of nunchaku training my wrist pain stopped.
So, if you don't like to lift weights, try training some traditional martial arts.
Prescriptive grammar:linguistics
Once my speed had picked up to the point where I could actually get something done, my old habit of letting my wrist bend came back to haunt me. If the gloves look nerdy, imagine a man with sharp pencils strapped to the top of his arms with velcro for an even nerdier image. The pencil points would poke me every time my wrists bent which would remind me to straighten my wrists. That was what this geek needed to get rid of the problem. I've since discarded the pencils and instead, stacked two keyboard wrist rests on top of each other so I don't have to think about wrist posture - it comes automatically. YMMV.
For what it's worth, I never did regain my qwerty speed. I type at 70 wpm now but back in the days when cpu speed was measured in khz I'd hit bursts of 95 wpm. The other down side is it annoys the hell out of people I work with because nobody ever knows what the current state of the keyboard is until they start typing and discover they're typing gibberish.
That picture was taken solely for showing the glove in action. 80% of the time I use my laptop I have a seperate keyboard and mouse.
At my previous job, my (right) mousing arm was in a very bad position for mousing, and I started getting a significant amount of pain in my wrist. (Would have been less than $100 for a proper mouse tray so I can use a computer for the remainder of my life, cheap bastards)
When I switched jobs, I started using the Imak SmartGlove and my wrist DOES NOT HURT AT ALL ANYMORE. If I type/mouse without one for a few hours, I feel the pain coming back.
The only drawback is wear. If this thing in on my wrist basically all day, it gets dirty. After a few weeks or months (depending on your particular body chemistry), it will start to get a bit rank, and will need to be washed. Just take out the support and throw it in with the laundry.
But drying can shrink them, and the support does weaken over time (although I must say, in the last two years they've made a few design improvements that have worked towards fixing this). So every few months when it's getting worn out, I get a new one at Staples for $15 (large tends to sell out first), and I use the 'old' one at home.
My 2 cents: If you have experienced wrist pain, or want to avoid it, invest in at least one of these. They're well-constructed, a great value, and much less expensive and painful than carpel tunnel surgery.
Buying a few SmartGloves a year? About $30-60. Not having burning wrist pain and weak hands? PRICELESS.
Rock Climbing (indoor or outdoor).
I used to have a mild case of CTS. I could only go about an hour before typing would become too painful. My wrist position while typing is pretty much as bad as could possibly be imagined, so that probably had something to do with it.
Then I started climbing. Climbing builds insane amounts of finger and wrist strength. I can now support my entire body weight (which has decreased by 30 lbs too!) hanging from any one of my fingers.
And my CTS is gone. Entirely. I routinely go 8-10 hours of continual typing (yes, I am a programmer) without any pain whatsoever. And my wrist position is as bad as ever.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"