Keyboard carpal culprit? Not so, study says

Your wrists may hurt after a long day at the computer, but your ailment isn't likely to be carpal tunnel syndrome.

Contrary to popular belief, heavy computer use--up to seven hours a day--does not increase the risk that a person will develop carpal tunnel syndrome, according to a report issued Wednesday by the Harvard Medical School.

That's because the wrist ailment, which surged into public consciousness in the 1990s, typically arises from factors such as heredity, body weight, fractures and pregnancy. It does not stem from repetitive stress, the report said.

Office workers can put themselves in harm's way, however, because of improper computer use and other workplace conditions that could provoke repetitive stress injuries. Pain from poor posture isn't limited to the hands; it can also affect the neck, shoulders and other parts of the body.

Carpal tunnel syndrome affects between 2 percent and 3 percent of the population, and almost twice as many women as men, the Harvard report said. It occurs when one of the three major nerves that travel from the spinal cord to the hand becomes pinched.

[dingleberry420]

I don't think this is correct..

[quote] It does not stem from repetitive stress, the report said. <br /><br />Office workers can put themselves in harm's way, however, because of improper computer use and other workplace conditions that could provoke repetitive stress injuries.<br />[/quote]<br /><br />So by improperly using a keyboard repetitively you can get carpel tunnel. Ergonimics is what can reduce the risk. A keyboard/mouse just happens to be the most (mis)used devices, therefore the leading cause.

[ddesy]

Safety standards

What we need here in the states is an enforced set of OSHA guidelines to help get ergonomics looked at. Most businesses don't seem to spend as much time looking at proper ergonomics as they do price and looks.

[codazoda]

I think you miss-read.

I think you miss-read the comment.<br /><br />I read it as saying that carpel tunnel is not a repetitive stress injury, but that improper computer use and other conditions can provoke repetitive stress injuries.<br /><br />My wrists hurt after using my keyboard for months at a time (I'm a programmer), but my problems are diagnosed as muscle related, not carpel tunnel. Since that diagnosis almost a year ago, most of my pain is gone by making minor adjustments in my behavior.<br /><br />Joel Dare<br />www.joeldare.com

[No_Man]

Not repetitive stress...

"So by improperly using a keyboard repetitively you can get <br />carpel tunnel."<br /><br />No, that's not what the article said. The article said that Carpel <br />Tunnel is _not_ a repetitive stress injury. However, you can <br />develop a repetitive stress injury from improper ergonomics. It's <br />not Carpel Tunnel, but it is an injury.<br /><br />I think the point this article is trying to make is that the <br />thousands of workers out there who have horrible pain in their <br />wrists when they type and have spent large sums of money on <br />treatment and wrist guards aren't faking it. They have an injury. <br />However, that injury isn't Carpel Tunnel Syndrome. It's <br />something self-inflicted from poor keyboard use.

[Brad81]

...

the report also mentioned "up to" 7 hours use. I think some people may have glossed over this little statement before making comment

[Steve Jordan]

Lesson: We need typing classes.

It does help explain why years of professional typists have not developed carpal tunnel prior to the last decade. Those people were trained to sit and work properly, and it clearly worked. Maybe what we need is to mandate typing classes in school for all students.

[Wizard Prang]

Not sure I agree....

...ALL of the people I know who have RSI/CTS are very fast touch-typists. I am not, and after 19 years in IT I still do not suffer from it.

[Earl Benser]

Typing classes aren't relevant any more....

The taught millions of people how to be a transrciber of dictaphone <br />belts, running 60 to 120 wpm. Those days are in antiquity now, <br />almost no one does that sort of typing. Even professional <br />stenographers let computers create the basic draft to edit.<br /><br />All those people who took typing didn't develop carpal tunnel <br />because typing does NOT cause carpal tunnel. Restoring typing <br />classes in a case of wasted effort.

[R-C-P]

Other Injuries

I've been on computers (work related) for nearly 25 yrs now. While I do not have any discomfort in my wrists, my fingers are now "locking" up (trigger fingers). I am in the graphics field so my use of the mouse and mouse buttons is more intense than the average user. I've had "shots", but that is only temporary, I had surgery (which did help for awhile) and now the condition is reappearing in the same fingers I had the surgery for. I am still in the same field of work. Others in my field of work are also now reporting similar conditions. Two fingers on my left hand are "locking" up and they are the only ones I use when I am "keyboarding". My right hand (the mouse hand) has four fingers "locking" up. RSI is the curpit here.<br />RCP

[axyzinc]

Baloney ... Harvard is biased due to lawsuit

I spoke with an ex-librarian of Harvard about 3-4 years ago. She had an operation for carpal-tunnel and said that Harvard had lost a class-action with their employees over this but had done nothing to really address ergonomic issues... at least to her ability to continue to work there. When I talked with her she worked at Ziff-Davis.

[heystoopid]

Ah, statistics my favourite subject

Whilst statistics were my favourite subject, where I was able to manipulate any data set of figures, to say anything!<br />Regretably, I could never get these rubber figures, to take my dog for a walk on cold winter mornings!<br />Oh well, data and information can be preordained to say anything one chooses, let the ignorance continue to fly in the face of real facts!

[Wizard Prang]

Follow the money...

How much of this is Corporations/Employers looking for a way to get "off the hook"?<br /><br />If keyboards are really harmless, does this mean that they are going to remove all of those warning labels? I don't think so...

This makes perfect sense to me, No /now/.

I went 18 years with on and off pain, numbness, and tingling in my hands and arms. This did roughly coincide with programming jobs. Eventually I was diagnosed CTS and was told that I would eventually need surgery. However, soon after this I was on a hypoallergenic diet (accidentally since those diets are B.S., right?), when years of particularly bad carpal and cubital syndrome symptoms suddenly diapered. I found I could turn the symptoms on and off by going on and off the diet. With experience, I learned use my carpal symptoms as an indicator of eating something contaminated with my allergens (hours to days lag time). <br /><br />A carpal and cubital tunnel case can easily involve autoimmunity secondary to a delayed food allergy (mild IgG and IgG types), which have recently found tot to be unbelievably common. Repetitive injury may contribute to the autoimmune reaction focusing on the tendons. The only real cure when this is the case is to eliminate the allergen from the diet.<br /><br />So, I still type on computers 8-12 hours a day, with no carpal and cubital syndrome at all!<br /><br />A short story of my return to health was publish in Pease Porridge in Electronic Design:<br /><a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.elecdesign.com/Articles/ArticleID/10412/10412.html" target="_newWindow">http://www.elecdesign.com/Articles/ArticleID/10412/10412.html</a><br />or<br /><a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.elecdesign.com/Articles/Print.cfm?ArticleID=10412" target="_newWindow">http://www.elecdesign.com/Articles/Print.cfm?ArticleID=10412</a><br /><br />Dr. Kenneth Fine has a great introductory essay on my particular common allergen: <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.finerhealth.com/Essay/" target="_newWindow">http://www.finerhealth.com/Essay/</a><br /><br />See also www.celiac.com<br /><br />Best Regards and Best Health,<br /><br />Harold Kraus

[Earl Benser]

And so....

... with diet manipulation, you can get or eliminate CTS without <br />ever getting close to a keyboard. I do believe that all the major <br />studies to date confirm that keyboards have nothing to do with <br />CTS. Those studies just didn't pursue the actual causes, which <br />could be as many as the people who have CTS.<br /><br />And true, for most people, the hypoallergenic diet is B.S. Buut <br />for those who have serious allergies, it could make sense. <br /><br />By the way, people with serious allergies show a high correlation <br />to being raised in a super clean household environment, without <br />an opportunity as a child to contract one of the milder and <br />widespread variants of hepatitus. So you have allergies, maybe <br />you should blame your mom........ ;-)

Not everybody who uses keyboards gets carpal

Not everybody who uses keyboards gets carpal. So there &gt;has&lt; to be some other physiological factor (or factors) that determines who gets one form or another of inflamed tendons or neuropathy. For myself, I found out what that physiological factor was and eliminated it. So I kept my job; no surgery, no medication, and no welfare.<br /><br />Harold Kraus

[Earl Benser]

Funny thing....

This finding was published five to ten years ago, based upon the <br />experiences of tens of thousands of government secretaries. Maybe <br />it was a different study, but the conclusions were the same.