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Ergonomics RSI Tips

Typing with Clawed Hands

With any computer input device, it’s how you use it that is important.

The prevalence is for keyboard users to use ‘clawed’ hands when using a keyboard to enter text. By this I mean when a user readies their hand position over the keyboard before they type, or whilst in thought between text entries, the hands can be seen to be extended into the air from the wrist in a ‘claw’ like shape (as pictured below). Often the wrists are leaning on a wrist rest, or worse still, leaning on just the hard desk surface .

bad wrist angle - the 'claw'

Even worse, some users can actually continue typing with their hands in this claw like manner, with the fingers being held high over the keys like an eagle’s talons over it’s prey.

The risks involved in this practice can be significant when done over a continuous period of time. The forearm extensor muscles are in continuous tension, as well as the tendons over the back of the hands and fingers. If held tense like this for long periods, the forearm muscles can fatigue very easily, ie they are being used in a way that they were not designed to be used for over protracted periods.

Categories
Ergonomics RSI Tips

Keyboard Pressure

I have had a mixed relationship with keyboards during the course of my injury. I’ve been through a few different types – standard, angled, extended, non-extended, split etc. All have their own positive and negative sides. Even the so called ‘ergonomic’ angled ones.

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RSI Tips

Medical Solutions – Physical Therapy

Often RSI sufferers will be referred by their doctor for physical therapy, which in my experience can range from ‘wonderful’ to ‘complete waste of time’ depending on the experience and attention of the physiotherapist. The most wonderful physical therapy treatment I received for RSI was when living (and working) in Silicon Valley in California. I believe physiotherapists out there were more used to seeing cases of computer related injuries what with the region being the heart of the high tech industry. What did they do that helped with the pain relief so much? Treatments included –

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Ergonomics RSI

Looking Back

RSI has been part of my life for over ten years now. In many ways I can’t remember the pain free time before the condition started. It’s hard to remember how it felt to use a computer and not associate its use with pain. I have in the past often been asked, ‘Why is this happening to you when others doing similar jobs don’t have any symptoms?’ Well, I guess we are all individuals, with unique musculo-skeletal structures, sensitivities and vulnerabilities, and therefore we all will react to using computers in different ways. We also have our individual ergonomic foibles, no two of us are the same, and we all misuse computers in a slightly different way from each other. As such, we can experience a multitude of different symptoms. Hence the global term “Repetitive Strain Injury” which is really an umbrella term for a wide array of more specific but little known ailments.

From my own perspective I have been using computers for a long time (circa early 1980s – from Sinclair ZX81s to Commodore 64s, to BBC Micros, to mainframes, to early IBM PCs, to Sun workstations) and did not have the benefits of a still evolving ergonomics industry. It is after all only in the last 5 to 10 years that ‘ergonomist’ was recognised as a job function. Indeed, it’s only just over 10 years ago that computers started to appear as common on peoples desks as a telephone. In many ways people in today’s generation will reap the benefits from emerging ergonomic knowledge obtained from years of watching cases like mine escalate in the computer using workforce.

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Categories
Ergonomics RSI

First Post

This is the first entry to my Ergomatters blog. I will be posting to this blog with discussion on various aspects relating to RSI and ergonomics, from a first hand perspective of an RSI sufferer. Hopefully sharing my experiences and findings can help others out there. Keep checking back for future updates.

All of the views expressed in this site are my own views based on living with an RSI type injury. I am neither a physician nor a qualified ergonomist, and as such my views may differ from those who are in those professions. I also suffer from a particular type of RSI condition, which may or may not be similar to your RSI condition, as such you should always consult a doctor as first point of call and make your own choices about how to proceed in dealing with your injury. This site consists of my opinions of what has and has not worked for me, and should therefore be used as a reference as to what avenues you should explore to try to find a solution to your RSI type injury.

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