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Does Computer Use Actually Cause Carpal Tunnel?
BoldAC writes "A geek physician has reviewed the medical literature that explores if a relationship exists between computer use and carpal tunnel syndrome. 'Typing at the keyboard or using the mouse for hours and hours upon end just seems like it has to be horrible for your joints, right?' His conclusions certainly seem to contradict the thinking of many: 'The current research shows that computer use has very little role in causing carpal tunnel syndrome.' It even seems that both Harvard and the Journal of the American Medical Association agree with his conclusions."
Does this mean Emacs Pinky is just evil VI propaganda?
I'd post a longer reply, but my hands hurt.
Baloney, of course computer use causes carpal tunnel....well, certain types of computer use anyways....
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
It is because most computer users (geeks) do not have girlfriends. So they hurt their wrist looking at porn...well the wrist are busy doing other stuff.
I smoked pot once. But I DID NOT inhale. Will you hire me?
I have CTS and am going for my op early next month to fix it. I'm 33 now and have used computers since the ZX81.
;o)
My GP insists that my CTS has nothing to do with my years of computer use, and that in fact it will be good post-op physio.
Still, I'm having one hand done at a time so that I can still manage one handed browsing.
Then how the hell did changing to an ergonomic keyboard and trackball stop the excruciating pain in my wrists that I experienced when using my old keyboard and mouse?
Technically speaking, I probably had tendinitis rather than carpal tunnel. Still, it's rather upsetting when you tell your doctor you have RSI and he doesn't have a clue what your talking about. God damn medical racket.
Now if they can just definitively show that masturbation does not cause blindness, geeks will finally be able to live worry-free.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
I'm older than any of you guys and I spend way too much time in front of a computer (ask my wife!). My hands are just fine, thank you. I got rid of the mouse a long time ago; now I use a trackpad. I also take breaks to go to a window and look off at something on the horizon, it helps prevent the seemingly ubiquitous nearsightedness (literally, not figuratively) among geeks.
This story is nothing new. What's really needed is a clarification of terms.
I have RSI (Repetitive Stress Injuries) and my carpal tunnel is just fine. It's the other nerves, tendons, and muscles of my hands which ache and cause the severe pain. If you try and explain this to people they just say 'Carpal Tunnel Syndrome' unless they're a doctor. Computer use DOES cause RSI which is the real problem, and a really painful and dangerous thing. Other tasks, sewing for instance, can also cause RSI. The phenomenon is not new.
How the carpal tunnel got so famous I don't know, but the term has stuck.
Photos.
The latest issues of CR (I'm a subscriber) listed carpel tunnel as one of the most over-diagnosed health problems. Something about a for-profit healthcare industry....just sits weird with me. I wonder how many times it would be diagnosed at all if they couldn't get the insurance companies to pony up the dough.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
As far as the aches and pains of computer use my experience is such:
1) 11 hours straight of Everquest - no pain from mouse or keyboard
2) 6 hours of Quake (back in the day) - no pain from mouse or keyboard
3) 20 minutes of mouse use at odd angle (but not so odd as to say other people wouldn't use a mouse like this) - back of hand starting hurting
4) Couple days of keyboard and mouse use on bad desk setup (keyboard high, forearms rest on edge of desk, etc) - shoulder and elbow pain.
I know what my body does and doesn't like. Relaxed shoulders, no reaching for the mouse, etc.
A lot of people confuse the two. It's very easy to get repetitive strain from using a computer. Wrist pain/weakness need not come in the form of carpal tunnel syndrome.
Computer work decreases blood flow to the wrist. In the absence of complementary activities that increase blood flow to the wrist, computer users are at risk of RSI.
Oh Lordy, the number of posts so far NOT involving spankin' duh monkey can be counted on one hand. Which is GOOD because my other hand is entirely busy at the moment.
I'm reasonably convinced that poor posture and hand position while *driving* contributes more tho CTS and/or RSI than typing does.
I think it's a serious confounding variable, that most office workers have those two things in common: significant time spent driving a car, and typing on computer keyboards.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
All the geeks I know with CTS are also urban bicycle enthusiasts. My theory is that the amount of jarring impacts and the force of them over time contribute CTS. What is weird to me is that all the CTS people I know are fit. Exercize regularly. The chubby geeks drink their dew and type at 120 words per minute with seemly no apparent problems other than being on the fast track to diabetes.
Hush. You're ruining it for the lawyers. How do you expect lawyers to cash in? People are in pain and the lawyers haven't fully exploited the moneymaking opportunity yet! Computer companies have deep, deep pockets, you know.
Wait until the companies have settled up and gone bankrupt. Then let it slip quietly that the whole thing wasn't true -- just like they did with the silicone gel breast-implant cases. Those were found to be harmless after the lawyers got paid.
About 6 years ago, I had CTS. I had just about the worst posture, hand position and everything else you could possibly imagine. And, as a programmer who spends at least 40 hours a week in front of a computer, it was starting to catch up with me. However, around that time, a friend of mine invited me to come rock climbing with him. I liked it so much that I started going to a local gym around 2-3 times a week. And a funny thing started happening...my CTS started to go away. About 3 months into my climbing habit (yes...it's an addiction), I was free of CTS pains entirely. I still have just about the worst ergonomics you could imagine, yet I have zero pain.
What I believe is going on is that CTS/RSI pain is not caused by doing one thing too often or putting your body in one position too often. Instead, it's caused by not doing other things often enough or putting your body in other positions often enough. I don't have any proof of that except for my own personal experience and the experiences of others that I've told, but those seem to indicate that bad posture/ergonomics can be counteracted by regular exercise of the affected area.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
Playboy.com ... the sound of one hand typing.
Bark less. Wag more.
I call upon them to Ctrl-Shift-Underscore everything they have said about Emacs!
You know you can have more than one mouse, right? I have one one each side of the keyboard, to 2 different usb ports, and they both work find. Grab the one that's the most convenient each time you need to use a mouse, or give each hand a break.
Kevin Smith on Prince
... the real cause are the millions of pr0n sites users visit while using their PC. Thats only true if one hand is effected as in one-hand-typing. If both hands have it then it means that user is actually doing real work. (unless they have blog which is another form of masturbation) See my blog for further details.Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
Yeah, there are a couple of points in those fifteen year-old articles which are sort of interesting. --That if you have arthritis, then you may be at higher risk. (Duh. --Though such points are important to medical insurance companies; if you have a prior condition, then you aren't going to be covered for your injuries.)
In any case, I don't really see why articles published fifteen years ago when RMI's were still a relatively new and misunderstood concept are suddenly worth getting upset over. It might be that the editor isn't too swift. . .
"Classically the associated diseases are the following: rheumatoid arthritis, menopause, hypothyroidism, acromegaly, end-stage renal disease, pregnancy, and obesity. Even then the data is not clear that the repetitive use contributes any."
Menopause is a disease? Pregnancy is a disease? No. But ending a sentence with the word 'any' is evidence of poor journalistic skill.
Seriously, the original claim looks like science making the classic mistake; if the lab can't explain a phenomenon, then obviously the observers out there in the public are at fault. It's swamp gas or hysteria, (menopause?). Or indeed, maybe the money funding the studies came from corporations worried about having to pay out on medical claims. Who knows? What I do know is that if you use your hands in certain sitting-at-desk work for long enough without breaks, your wrists and joints start to hurt and your back and neck can get messed up, and the skin can even wear right off the parts of your hands rubbing against the desk / paper, etc. --I knew an animator who ruined her hands trying to meet a crazy deadline with a crazy amount of work and ended up smearing blood across her easel. She was unable to work for several months afterwards. But then I suppose we can just blame her chronic condition (being female) rather than repetitive motion stress for the injury.
What a silly article.
-FL
Personally, I think some of these RSIs attributed to "typing" are only telling 1/2 the story... I think typing may cause it but it's really "typing with poor form". Do you rest your wrists on the tabletop/desktop while you type? That's poor form... it binds things that need to slide around inside your hand/arm between your bones/muscles and the desktop. Do you wiggle the mouse around resting your wrist on the desktop? That's bad, too, for the same reason.
Similarly, are your wrists flat or does your hand form an angle with your forearm? An angle (particularly with resting your wrists on the tabletop) means that the sliding around bits has to go around corners. Normally, this probably isn't so bad (as long as your wrists aren't on the tabletop) for 'normal' use because your hand/forearms may change angles and such a lot but if you do it while typing, you may spend hours with your wrists bend and binding your sliding bits against the tabletop.
I've been typing (both programming and writing) for nearly 30 years now and have never had an RSI that I know of.
Driving doesn't cause death... if your careful. Typing doesn't cause carpal tunnel, if your careful, amazing isn't it.
I find that the CTS is actually worse in my dominant arm. I believe it is at least in part due to mouse use, because I find that when it flares up, it's far more painful to use a mouse than it is for me to type.
FWIW, I found that switching the mouse to the left hand for a month and then alternating every couple of weeks made all my arm pain go away. It takes a day or two to get used to using the mouse in the off-hand, but was well worth it for me.
rage, rage against the dying of the light
The article isn't signed: it has as much scientific value as an Anonymous Coward post.
Funny how we can't check out the author to see if he (or she) is really a shill for the workers' comp insurance companies, not unlike the shills for Exxon who deny that the planet is getting warmer.
Ever been to a trial of a personal injury case? There are plenty of orthopedic physicians who will, for a buck, testify that Joe Plaintiff wasn't really crippled, or even hurt, in the accident that totalled his car.
The shill orthopedists live in great, big houses up on the hill.
I find that my wrists start to hurt if I put the feet on the back of the keyboard up - it forces my wrists to bend backwards, which they don't like to do. My piano teachers always stressed keeping the forearms up and letting the fingers curl down naturally; if I do something like that at the computer keyboard, I find I don't have wrist pain.
I've suggested this to a number of coworkers, and it has reduced their wrist pain in most cases. Obviously your experience is different... people's bodies can vary considerably.
My other favorite workstation ergonomic discovery is a using a trackball instead of a mouse. This lets me make all those tiny little precision movements with my fingers, which are good at that sort of thing, instead of with my forearm, which seems to be better at larger, less precise motions. This keeps my forearm from cramping up during long computing sessions.
My truck is like a series of tubes.