A large percentage of people whose jobs involve prolonged sitting at a computer have complaints of wrist pain and discomfort. These complaints are most often due to an injury occurring from repetitive strain injury.
What exactly is repetitive strain injury? It is a term that describes pain coming from a muscle, tendon or nerve injury. This damage can be due to performing the same type of movements (repetitive motions) on a daily basis, which leads to overuse of certain muscle groups and results in pain and discomfort. In office environments, the most common cause is related to computer work- poor body posture, long hours typing on the keyboard, mouse work.
Having said that, we physiotherapists at Okto can give you some ideas on how you can protect yourself from these unpleasant problems:
We will look and go a little deeper into each of the points listed.
Make sure your wrists and shoulders are in a relaxed position. Your elbows should make a 90 degree angle with your body. The keyboard should be at a distance that does not require you to extend your arms.
It is appropriate to use ergonomic office chairs. It is important to sit with a straight back, the head should be along the spine not protruding forward nor too far back. When sitting down, aim to keep your seat as close to the back as possible so that you can maintain a normal curve of the lower back. It is also appropriate to use a cushion that is placed behind the waist. Try to avoid your shoulders going forward. It is important when using a keyboard or mouse to avoid an arm position where your wrist is flexed, the best position is when the wrist is in a neutral position i.e. upright and along the forearm.
As mentioned the keyboard should be at such a distance that you don't have to stretch your arms forward. Do not use the keyboard lifter, as this causes the keyboard to tilt, causing the wrists to be bent in the direction of the body.
When grasping the mouse, the hand should be relaxed and in a neutral wrist position. Avoid any position where the wrist is bent or twisted. The distance at which the mouse should be positioned should be such that you do not have to extend your arm forward, thus avoiding shoulder strain.
An ergonomic office chair is one of the most important devices that helps to maintain a good postural position of the body, thus not only protecting your wrists, but also the whole body.
When choosing an office chair, it's a good idea to see if it allows you to adjust the height so that your feet can be firmly planted on the ground. It should give good back and lumbar support, be able to adjust the armrests and of course be able to swivel so you don't have to twist, twist and tilt your body when you need to work away from your seat. It's also a good idea for the chair to have a higher backrest to give shoulder and neck support.
You can also try ergonomic keyboards, which create a keyboard angle that keeps your hands and wrists in an anatomical position. Also, if you have wrist complaints that get worse when using the mouse, it's a good idea to try replacing it with an ergonomic one. An ergonomic mouse also allows the hand to be held in a comfortable and non-straining position.
Pressing the keyboard buttons too hard on the one hand can damage it, on the other hand it can damage your hands. A common damage is the so-called carpal tunnel syndrome, which can often lead to surgical intervention to deal with the symptoms. Gently pushing the buttons is enough to get the job done.
If you often have to write texts that include identical words and expressions, you can insert a dictionary to replace you in the repeated spelling of these words.
Another skill you can learn to help yourself is to learn to type on a keyboard using all 10 fingers, or "touch typing". Doing this will ease the work on your hands by spreading the workload between all your fingers, and it will also ease your neck, which won't be constantly looking at the monitor.
At Okto, we always advise and try to encourage our patients who spend much of their day sitting in front of a computer to take frequent breaks and get some exercise.
It is appropriate to take breaks every 30-40 minutes to 1 hour as a minimum, and these can include short walks in the office as well as performing several exercises. Stretching exercises for the wrists as well as for the whole body for the neck, back, waist, arms, legs are extremely suitable.
We at the Physiotherapy Bio Center are of the opinion that there is no better prevention than movement, so we can give you some sample exercises to protect your hands and in particular your wrists.
Example exercises:
