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Repetitive strain injury

Repetitive strain injury, also called repetitive stress injury or typing injury, is an occupational overuse syndrome affecting the tendons and nerves. It occurs when a person makes too many of the same motions over a long period of time. It is most common among workers on assembly lines and among those who type frequently or use a computer mouse extensively. Good posture and the right (ergonomic) working conditions can lessen the chance of developing the disorder.

Repetitive strain injury is not a specific disease but a loose group of other, more specific conditions. Some of these are:

Contents

Warning signs

RSI conditions have many varied symptoms. The following may indicate the onset of an RSI.

  • Painful, sore, or cold hands
  • Tingling, numbness or loss of sensation
  • Difficulty using hands, buttoning clothing, putting gas (petrol) in car, etc.
  • Lack of endurance, weakness, fatigue

Prevention

The following applies to typing or computer use.

  • Avoid resting the wrists on anything when typing. Hold them straight, rather than bent up, down, or to the side.
  • Use two hands to invoke multiple key combinations, instead of reaching for the keys with one hand.
  • Eliminate the use of the computer mouse as much as possible:
    • Learn to use keyboard shortcuts. Define your own shortcuts if the application allows it.
    • Consider turning on accessibility features (e.g. sticky keys).
    • Try to perform mouse-intensive tasks from the keyboard.
    • Use a browser which was designed with extensive keyboard accessibility in mind (for example, by using the combination of "Find links" and "Spatial navigation" features of Opera an almost completely mouseless browsing experience is possible; or "Caret browsing" of Mozilla/Firefox).
  • Drink lots of water in order to stay hydrated, keep joints healthy, and ensure frequent breaks. Doing frequent breaks can be difficult. There is software that can handle breaks, which can help.
  • Learn to pay attention to posture. Be aware of pain and change habits to prevent it.

References

External links

Last updated: 08-25-2005 13:33:38
Last updated: 09-12-2005 02:39:13