RSI is not a specific disease but a loose group of other, more specific conditions. It is generally associated with work related injury due to repetetive movements, tasks and poor posture or ergonomics. It is very known amongst computer users who need to work on the keyboard or a mouse all day long.
Some early signs of RSI are: recurring pain or soreness in neck, shoulders, back, wrists or hands. Often associated with feelings of numbness, tingling, coldness or general loss of sensation; in hands it is usally associated with a decrease in strength and muscle mass, a lack of endurance or general symproms of fatigue and weakness.
Later stages of RSI can be very discomforting, ranging from inflammation related symptoms to far worse states of pain during work and other tasks. A story I once heard was of a waoman who would have to chose in the morning between opening the door or brushing her teeth — as she would not be able to do both because of pain in her hands.
There are no one-shot remedies for these problems. Most include a slow change of working habits, postures — accompanied by medication and anti-inflammatory treatment. Thus it is very advisable to prevent these syndromes from ever appearing or, ususally more applicable, from worsening.
There are two major approaches to this, both which should be used in cooperation:
- Tools
- Changes in behaviour.
Tools include a mutitude of input devices (such as a pen tablet, a trackball or ergonimc keyboards) as well as an ergonimic desktop setup (see your computer’s manual for example). Changes in behaviour is usually focussed on taking breaks, doing excercises and in general providing more change and less repetition of tasks.
Also interesting and useful are applications that run on the computer which remind the user to take breaks, usually a mixture of “microbreaks” (which reduce the continuous work by introducing short, 15 second breaks every 5 to 7 minutes) and general breaks (about 5 to 7 minutes every hour of continuous break time, usefuly for taking a coffee break, doing some strtching excercises…)
Software for Mac OSX:
Some Tools:
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