If you’re like me, you type on your computer at work most of the day, then use your PC at home to cruise the internet and/or blog in your free time; you’re also surfing the internet and blogging using a wireless machine either at the local coffee shop or in the lobby of a business hotel. Eventually, you may wind up with forearm, wrist, hand, shoulder or back pains from using your hands and arms so long. These days, this is almost normal but you still should seek to avoid the type of long-term damage that comes with Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI).
RSI has been called the “epidemic that begain in the ’90s,” and it can damage the muscles, nerves and tendons of the hands, wrists and arms. Fortunately, there’s both free and low-cost advice available to avoid becoming a diagnosed RSI sufferer.
Three websites offer specific information and helpful recommendations on this condition: healthy computing, RSI-Relief, and rsi help. RSI help is the website of Deborah Quilter who wrote “the book” on the subject, Repetitive Strain Injury: A Computer User’s Guide, with Dr. Emil Pascarelli. This is an excellent book that can help you determine whether you are at risk for RSI – and most of us in today’s workplace are at risk – and give you the steps and tips you need to avoid permanent injury.
Once you’ve fully learned and incorporated the lessons of Quilter’s first book, you might want to purchase her second book (pictured), The Repetitive Strain Injury Recovery Book, which provides a type of check-list approach to remind you to continue to use the positive techniques you learned earlier.
A final point on RSI… Everyone is different and Quilter points out that what works for one person may not work for another. Experimenting is key. This is quite true… A few years back I was suffering an initial bout of RSI-type symptoms and the I.T. guy in the office gave me a roller-ball mouse. Like Quilter, I found this was not helpful; the roller-ball actually requires more movement and led to pain in my right hand.
The same I.T. guy then brought me a thumb-click mouse. As if by magic, about 80% of my pain and discomfort went away within days! But this remedy was not meant to be a permanent one, and I likely fell back into some bad habits. So now I’m re-reading Quilter’s books to see how I can re-learn the lessons that will enable me to keep word processing and blogging.
Reprinted courtesy of the Troy Bear blog; originally posted on March 14, 2009.
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