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Computers and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Studied
pioneer writes "An article on MSNBC.com reports that a Danish study has found that computer use is not a significant risk factor for carpal tunnel syndrome. Not sure about you, but I spent a lot of time learning dvorak and kinesis to prevent just that... the 'inevitable' onslaught of RSI/carpal tunnel/etc."
My opinion is that the younger you started the less likely you are to have problems. I've been at a keyboard since before 10yrs old, and now, over 30, I don't have any problems at all, either eye sight or wrist/hand related. No special keyboards, no left/right hand mouse switching.
M@
Krispy Cream is people
Okay. Either I misread it the first time over, or the editor in charge already changed it (I hope the latter, otherwise eye sight problems might have been induced by severe monitor use)
:)
But to reply on the matter at hand (no pun intended), any sort of work which forces you into the same type of repetitive movements or the same position for hours on end, has serious health repercussions. If this study 'proves' (for as far as you can do that in a statistical study) that computer keyboard use isn't the primary cause for CTS, then it's still a useless study. If it would have been a study to what *does* cause these kind of problems, it would be of a lot more use to the generic population of computer users.
I'll wait for this study to appear before drawing any conclusions. On the base of this article, any comment would be straining for significance. It doesn't describe the testing methods, it doesn't describe the age group, it doesn't describe the previous work, etc, etc.
On just this article, I don't think anyone can make any intelligent comments (and I'll include myself in that as well
Mad.
Coz eternity my friend, is a long *ing time.
Computer use is no more a cause for repetitive stress injuries than any other activity. The difference is that people don't seem to stop for a while when their bodies tell them to.
I've been keyboarding long days for 26+ years now (and "mousing" since 1984). When I start to feel a little cramped, I stop for a few minutes. No carpel tunnel injuries.
Likewise, my vision hasn't changed over the same period, for the same reason. Eyes get tired? Stop. Look around (at a distant object). Close them for a minute.
Repetitive stress injuries are self-inflicted wounds. The psychology behind the activity would be more interesting to read about, but I haven't seen any articles on that subject.
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Typing doesn't cause carpal tunnel, or any other RSI. Improper wrist positioning will do it, though. "Traditional" touch-typing on a QWERTY keyboard (fingers on the home row, ASDF JKL;) crimps up your wrists and is just bloody unnatural.
I've been typing since I was five--I'm twenty-five now. I type at ~100WPM. Because I'm self-taught, I don't use the traditional touch-type method. When I type, my hands are at about a 45 degree angle to the keyboard; if I had a "home row", it would be something like QSDC MKLP. I hit whichever key with whichever finger is closest. My wrists stay straight and uncrimped.
I type multiple hours per day, every day, and I don't suffer fatigue, carpal tunnel, RSI, or any of that other business. My touch-typing coworkers walk around with braces on each wrist, and gingerly ease themselves down in front of split-key ergo keyboards and start wincing when they have to type for more than a few minutes.
Keyboarding doesn't cause RSI. Traditional, wrist-crimping touch-typing causes RSI.
With all due respect to my computer-using brethren, I can entirely understand this and have long suspected the same.
Carpal-Tunnel and RSI were originally diagnosed in women who worked at "sweatshop" textile factories in the early part of the industrial revolution. Sewing is WAY harder on your hands than typing, and so it probably ran rampant in that environment. But there was almost no treatment; women were by and large told to "suck it up" and stop complaining, because it was "just" pain afterall, it's not like they broke anything.
It wasn't until millions of white men started working with keyboards and a VERY SMALL percentage of them got RSI, that it became worthy of national attention. And so now, if you get diagnosed with RSI, you can get disability pay, early retirement, or at least many ergonomic adjustments to facilitate your recovery... IF you're white.
One of the groups who suffer RSI at a much higher rate than computer users: meat packers. Today's meat packing plants run 2-3 times faster, sometimes more, than their historical counterparts, and some cutters have to slice through 60-80 pounds of meat over 100 times an hour. I promise, this will burn out your wrists WAY faster than writing an ActiveX module. But most meat plant workers are Hispanic, and/or non-English speakers. They get $9 an hour, minimal benefits, and, like women in textile factories of old, are usually told to shut up and quit if they don't like it when their wrists are in searing pain.
So, by and large CT/RSI is an affluent white excuse to complain about jobs we aren't "satisfied" with. The people who are truly suffering from these conditions are largely ignored and always have been.
I've noticed that most people I've known who have these problems use low sensitivity settings for their mice, and often move their whole arm and wrist .
Everyone else I know, however, uses extremely high sensitivity and accelleration settings. (I tweaked the reg keys in Windows to get it as high as I wanted.) I grip the mouse lightly with my fingers, and only they move. My wrist, my arm: both remain stationary. The mouse itself moves no more than a half-inch in any direction no matter what I'm doing (and at 1600px no less).
I suppose the point I'm trying to make is that these problems are avoidable, and they're caused by poor practices more than anything else.
In the infinite wisdom of the Polish Doctor from the old joke, "Stop doing that!"
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It seems to me that a lot of people complaining about RSI are in crap shape to begin with. Obviously, if you rarely stretch your body and use it in an atheletic capacity, (or if you are an athelete, but you don't properly stretch) it will start catching up to you. In my experience, everyone should stretch as much as one full hour per day, and they should begin with an even more intense regimen to establish good baseline flexibility. It is *amazing* how many aches and pains are due to stiff muscles in your back and legs. For the record, I've never had any RSI, and I've been using computers for an average of 6+ hours a day for twenty years. When I see someone complaining about RSI (which most people in their mid-thirties eventually do in my office), I view them as equivalent to lard-ass, McDonald's eaters that complain about having back pain. Hello?! Do something about your *real* problem (being inflexible (or fat)) before you get some surgery on your hand.