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Ergonomics Input Devices RSI Tips

Of Mice and Men – Mice and RSI

I’ve had a rather unpleasant history with mouse use, culminating in the inability to use a bog standard mouse with either hand for more than 2-3 minutes before the onset of severe pain. This reaction has built up over many years of mouse (ab)usage, and I have a certain loathing for the devices now. It has to be said that many of the cheaper mice (normally the ones shipped by certain PC manufacturers) are some of the most unergonomic pieces of equipment available. Computer manufacturers have a lot to answer for having shipped us less than ergonomic mice with their computers for the last 20 years. Quite often an end user does not experience any other type of mouse apart from the one that ships with their computer system. Whilst these mice are designed with aesthetically pleasing features, their ergonomic qualities leave a lot to be desired. This can of course be tolerable if the user seldom uses the computer, but if they do use it a lot then it can ultimately lead to the onset of RSI type symptoms.

Having seen what manufacturers ship with their systems, I would be a proponent of legislation to ensure that the basic minimum mouse is an ergonomic one.

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Ergonomics RSI Tips

Keyboard Thumping and RSI

One vivid memory of my injury when employed was watching how fellow workers in certain situations thumped their keyboards. I remember it well, because I used to wince when I saw them do it.

Having been an RSI sufferer for the best part of a decade, and having come from an identical background to my colleagues (and no doubt had been prone to thumping keyboards in my time), I fully realised the implications of the use of excessive force as people interacted with their keyboards.

Keyboard thumping (the act of hitting the keyboard keys with exaggerated force or heavy pounding) can be barely noticed by the user, but is usually attributable to them being overly frustrated with the computer/piece of software being used or or emotionally involved with an angry ‘flame’ mail etc. During these times it is not unusual for this anger and stress to build up and be vented in this way. There is really no place for emotional frustration and computer use. Your body needs to be ergonomically positioned, relaxed and fluid when interacting with computers in order to minimise the exposure to RSI causing effects, and not demonstrating emotional reactions like the guy below!


The keyboard/computer is ‘paying the price’ for the person’s anger and frustration.

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Miscellaneous RSI Tips

Sleeping and RSI

If you suffer from an RSI type condition, it can be aggravated when you least expect it to be ie. during your sleep.

When you actually analyse what position your arms , wrists and hands are in when you wake up, you will more often than not, find them in all kinds of contorted positions. Quite often the wrist can be bent or twisted, causing blood flow restrictions, pinched nerves, and RSI symptoms can be worse when you least expect them to be.

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Ergonomics RSI Tips

Lateral wrist deviation angle and RSI

Lateral (Ulnar) wrist deviation

A very common bad ergonomic practice is wrist deviation when using a keyboard. Keyboards have never been the most ergonomically designed devices, and users tend to hold their wrists very central to the keyboard whilst inducing a lateral deviation in their wrist angle.

bad wrist angle keyboard RSILateral (ulnar) deviation can eventually lead to wrist pain, both centrally and at the outer edges of the wrist. This can occur due to nerve pinching and tendon compression which can ultimately lead to RSI like conditions.

The image on the left shows lateral deviation in both wrists. This deviation can be further worsened by the user reaching for keys at the more extreme end of the keyboard, most commonly by little lateral wrist ‘flicks’.

This is a very common ergonomic problem, and can be easily rectified by the user once they know what to look for. The biggest problem being that most
users don’t start paying attention to wrist deviation this until pain develops.

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Ergonomics Miscellaneous RSI

Maximum Exposure to RSI

We live in a technology driven world and seem to spend much of our lives using electronic gadgets. These include:

  • computers (mice/keyboards) for our work, gaming, web surfing, emailing, blogging, socialising
  • organisers to plan our lives
  • mobile phones for text messaging, web surfing etc
  • other hand held email devices
  • mp3 players
  • digital cameras
  • laptops
  • game consoles
  • TV remotes and 100’s of channels to hop

What do all these devices have in common?

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RSI

RSI – Travelling Tensions

It has been a problem for a while now with my RSI condition – air travel aggravates it. There are a few reasons I think that this happens:

  1. Stress of travelling. Let’s face it, in this day and age, any air travel seems designed to stress people out. New security checks delay progress, plus being at airports super early for check-in adds to the tension of flying itself (for me anyway).Being herded around ever busier terminals and waiting to get aboard ever busier flights is not a recipe for relaxation.
  2. There are the physical side effects of carrying heavy luggage around.
  3. There is also the lack of sleep/rest associated with travel, eg different time zones, unfamiliar bed etc.
Categories
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.

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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 –

Categories
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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