Doctor, it hurts when I...
I've been noticing a bit of pain in my wrists and fingers recently, particularly in my right hand. At first I thought it was just the general symptoms of the ME/CFS which can cause muscle and joint pain including fingers and wrists but I'm now beginning to think that there may be a bit of RSI involved too. Repetitive Strain Injury is particularly prevalent in heavy users of computer mice and keyboards. The constant tiny movements involved in clicking a mouse button can, over time, cause damage to your fingers and wrist resulting in at pain or even the inability to work. For some time I'd been aware of a loss of strength in both my hands and had put this down to ME/CFS but after a bit of research this is also a symptom of RSI.
As a Design Engineer I'm shackled to my desk for hours at a time using some of the most mouse and keyboard dependent software known to man, ProEngineer. When in intensive design mode I'm sure I will get through 10s of thousands of mouse clicks and tiny mouse movements a day. I've started to look at ways of lessening the load on my right hand and the Spaceball 5000 motion controller seems to be the favourite at the moment. At over 350 quid the boss is likely to quiver his bottom lip but my mind is made up, I want one. This device would allow me to use my left hand for rotating, panning and zooming the 3D model while editing with the mouse using my right hand. At the moment much of the mouse movement and clicking is related to movement of the 3D model on screen.
Also of interest are some exercises designed to ease and prevent RSI type problems. I'm going to give these a go and see how I get on.
posted by Ricky Dee at
3:15 PM
1 Comments:
I'd forgotten to add the link to the exercises site. Now added, give it a go. I've been doing them about twice a day at work last week and feel the difference already.
By
Ricky Dee, at 20 November 2004 20:11
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