Datahand?

As I understand it, yes. It's really a "what angle is your elbow while
you are using it" test, so keyboard trays which don't have room
for a mouse don't make a lot of sense for most people.

-- Mike --

--
Mike Bell, Albion Research Ltd.
"RSI concerns? Taking regular breaks? Try Albion StopNow! for your PC."
http://www.albionresearch.com/ astopnow/

I'm sure my desk height is way off

My "desk" consists of two Hon file cabinets with a 1"
thick piece of counter top for a surface.  So this make
total desk height at 30"

Is that way too high?

If yes what is proper height?

And to change to proper height is it better to get a
keyboard and mouse "tray that attaches under this
surface?  Or to just get a whole nee desk that is at
correct height?

To my way of thinking it would be simpler to just get a
whole new desk to correct height say 27" maybe?

I think a keyboard tray would just be more stuff to
break or hang up. No?

The theory is that your elbow should be bent at approximately 90 degrees
when typing. (So it depends how tall you are). The ideal keyboard
height is lower than the ideal height for writing etc. - hence a
keyboard drawer does make some sense. I use two desks - one at the
right height for typing, one for writing - but most people don't
have that option. I've never used a keyboard tray because I'm concerned
about knee clearance, my desk isn't suitable for retrofitting, and the
one's I've considered all made me sit too far from the screen.
(The cheap ones all look like they would bounce around a lot too. )
But other people use them... perhaps try one for a few days
from somewhere with a good return policy.

Workstation ergonomics guidelines can be found at
http://www.yale.edu/ergo/index 2.htm

One thing to watch for is what you do with your wrists when you
are typing (or aren't typing). Do you rest them on the edge of the
desk? I was using a "normal" chair which was very low (it wasn't
designed as a desk chair) which meant my forearms were tilted upwards
and I rested my wrists on the sharp edge of the desk.

Mouse pads with built in gel rests are nice - the one I use is
made by Fellowes and is available from most business stores. I also
use an old style Microsoft "Natural" keyboard which has a wrist
rest on it. (The newer ones are probably just as good but some of the
keys are undersized).

If you've got the ergonomics right then taking regular short breaks will
generally help. A 5 minute break every 20 to 25 minutes is widely suggested
in the literature and certainly helped me recover. (Tip: grab a sheet of
paper and take a walk round the office - that way it doesn't look like
you're taking a break!)

Hope this helps,

-- Mike --

--
Mike Bell, Albion Research Ltd.
"RSI concerns? Taking regular breaks? Try Albion StopNow! for your PC."
http://www.albionresearch.com/ astopnow/

What is the ideal height for the mouse then?  Same as
keyboard height?

I agree abt not wanting to use a keyboard tray.  They
just look like they are not very "robust" and prone to
getting knocked around.... especially in a rugged
office environment... if you know what I mean.

Sounds very much like what happened to me. The wrist brace helped
me sleep but didn't seem to do much else. Check that your desk/chair
is at a height which keeps your wrist approximately in the
neutral position, and that there aren't any sharp edges you are
leaning your wrist on when not using the mouse/keyboard. I now use
one of the mouse pads with a built in gel wrist rest.

I figure the immediate causes for me were a low chair (not
adjustable) and a desk with a sharp front edge.  Add a return to work
after a break and an easy project involving a high type:think ratio...

Pics of neutral position at
    http://www.albionresearch.com/ astopnow/rsi_prevention.php

Also guide to Windows shortcuts which may help you reduce mouse usage at:
    http://www.albionresearch.com/ astopnow/reluctant_mouser.php

If you swap mouse hands (which is what I ended up doing) it takes
about a week to get used to using the mouse with your left hand.
(But try and figure out a cause first, or you'll end up with both
wrists having problems.)

-- Mike --
PS. And as Graeme pointed out - seek medical advice...

There's an excellent forum here you can ask about this
http://forum.knowbrainer.com
Probably lots of people with RSI are using Dragon NS.

Also have a look at this
http://home.comcast.net/~Vocol a/

Graeme

yes you are correct.  I really haven't been "diagnosed"
yet

I'm jumping the gun I guess

But I do know my right wrist is hurting me something
fierce

At first I thought maybe I was folding my wrist in
awkward angles when sleeping...so I've been wearing a
brace to immobilize it when sleeping. That's helped...
but I'm afraid its my "job" environment that's really
the cause of it

Thanks so much!

Interesting product!

Actually I'm not sure typing is what hurting my wrist.
I actually think it is caused more by mouse usage.
Would you agree that using a mouse to be more harmful
than typing?

If yes.... I'm wondering out loud here if a "foot"
mouse might be a better solution for me than voice
recognition? see link

http://tinyurl.com/53k7s

You sound as if you maybe haven't seen a Doctor or Physiotherapist to
get a diagnosis of your problem.  I would strongly recommend getting
some professional advice about what the problem is and then look at the
cause.  If your "mousing wrist" is worse than your non-mousing wrist and
you do *lots* of mousing  e.g. graphics dezign, then it seems likely
that mousing is part of the problem.  Once you have RSI in your wrist I
suspect mousing will definitely be an aggravating factor.

If you try the foot mouse you will need to be careful not to overdo it,
because using a foot mouse will most likely load a large range of
muscles and be something you are completely unused to.  Even with voice
recognition software, there is actually a danger of injuring your voice
through overuse.

Try to find out what's causing your problem  - posture is really
important if your working at a computer intensively, as is taking
frequent breaks and doing stretches.

Graeme

Ummm.... that's too bad.

I was hoping to find some discussion of using voice
recognition software for RSI caused by computer use

is there another news group more active than this?

Apart from microsoft.public.windowsxp.som­ething ...  - no I don't think
there is, but you could try the RSI forum link (mailing list) here
http://www.ctdrn.org/

I don't know anything about it but the web site appears to be
up-to-date-ish.

Graeme

wow, that sounds tough.  I'm 47 and single (sad to say) and have a
programming job writing embedded software.  I get massage once a week
and use ice packs on my wrists a lot which contains the problem well
enough to allow me to do hobbyist programming at home, but I can't play
any kind of sport and struggle to do many basic things, which is very
frustrating.

Cool, that's great.  I got some A's at university too but not as many as
I could have got with more focus and self-confidence  - in theory ...

I hadn't heard of mathtalk.  Have you heard of Vocola/Natlink
http://home.comcast.net/~Vocol a/
I bought the pro version of DNS so that I could write my own scripts.
My scripts for RepeatPageDown, RepeatMoveDown etc execute quite a bit
faster than the DNS native commands.  DNS 8 seems to have more speed
issues than DNS 7.  I was told here
http://forum.knowbrainer.com/r ead.php?f=2&i=16744&t=16744
that upgrading from 512 MB to 1GB RAM would solve the speed problem for
me, but I wasn't convinced and (accidentally) solved it with the
scripts.  I got much better recognition with DNS 8 than DNS 7 but it may
have partly been because I set my microphone volume setting differently
and got a much better noise to signal ratio thing.

BTW - the knowbrainer forum seems pretty friendly and there's lots of
Doctors there :)  - there's bound to be some rsi people too, so if you
wanted to make a slightly OT post enquiring if anyone has a problem
similar to you or has used datahand, I doubt if anyone would mind.

Yeah, newsgroups are great for getting help and support.

In my country (New Zealand), RSI is known as OOS (occupational overuse
syndrome).  I believe my problem originated from a combination of
overuse gardening type activity and a soccer injury, rather than work.
I was officially diagnosed with OOS by a specialist and told that rest
wasn't the answer.  I think the guy had a closed mind however.
Activities like housework and driving affect me a lot more than
keyboarding and give me pain in my wrists *after* the activity.  I have
more sore muscles and tendons etc in my hands, wrists, arms and upper
body than I can be bothered counting.  I also suffer from sleep
deprivation which I really hate.  I've had the last nine weeks off work
to try and fix some of this problem during which time I've focused on
treating my left forearm  - hence I went looking in this newsgroup to
see what experiences other people were having.  I think I've made some
progress, but until I start stepping up the activity for my left forearm
in a couple of days, I won't know if I've fixed nothing or everything in
it.  I had to cross friction deep into my muscles myself to actually
locate some of the problem, which had a bad effect on my right arm ..

That's too bad as I MUCH prefer Usenet based groups
over web based ones.

So you are telling me there is little discussion abt
RSI on any of the Usenet groups available?

This group seems to average about 1 real posting (i.e. not spam selling
drugs or other junk) a month. There was a moderated newsgroup (with
spasmodic postings) but that seemed to be dead now.

I think there are a few reasons for this:
* Web based discussion groups are relatively spam free, better moderated,
  and easier to search. (Although I haven't found a good one for RSI)
* If you've recovered from RSI, it's not necessarily something you want
  to talk about. If you have RSI, Google is a better source of instant
  information than Usenet. Only if you're stuck for an answer do you post
  here.
* It's now possible to find sympathetic doctors who understand RSI - this
  wasn't always the case - so professional medical advice may be available.
  (There are no newsgroups for influenza or broken legs as far as I know).

[Missed the start of this thread - don't check this group anywhere near as
often as I used to for some of the above reasons - so hope this is still
on topic.]

-- Mike --

--
Mike Bell, Albion Research Ltd.
"RSI? Taking regular breaks? Try Albion StopNow! for your PC."
http://www.albionresearch.com/ astopnow/

I am a college student, so whether or not my hands hurt, I have to turn out
papers and projects and homework assignments, typing isn`t one of the
activities I can stop.  I`ve had to quit doing so many other things just to
be able to keep typing for school, but I know I`m lucky I still have some
use of my arms.  Hence the datahand, supposedly the most ergonomic keyboard
ever created.  Also the most expensive, I`m sure, at over $1000 ...... I am
infinitely lucky, my friend had two of these keyboards, one he bought
himself, one from his old workplace (they gave it to him when he quit, since
its not easy to learn to use and no one else would have touched it.  The
thing *looks* scarey, and far from usable!)  Cheers to old network admin
salaries that permitted such an expense, and for the friendship that got me
such a wonderful treasure, even if it still hurts much to use, I can at
least type enough to correct voice recognition and write chemical formulas.
So far I`ve done far better than I thought, despite it hurting more I still
got As :) I`m lucky....

I do use dragon naturally speaking, and it does wonders for everything
except chemistry and math.... :/   I *have* used dragonspeak for html
writing, though it is a tedious pain.  The newer version might do it better,
I`ve not tried yet, but it doesn`t seem all that better than version 7.  I
don`t know much programming, but if it uses symbols, like calculus or html,
there is a companion program for dragon naturally speaking, called mathtalk,
that will do all the funky symbols, don`t know if that would be better for
programming.  It didn`t run on my old laptop, but it was only a P-4.  With
my new centrino processor, it might run at something faster than a symbol
every half hour :/

Sad, I was hoping this place was full of other people,  and at this point
I`m so frustrated that just having a place with like-hurting people who`d
have a clue about what its like to deal with rsi hurts might do me good.
Thanks for replying, at least I`m not talking into the void.  What kind of
rsi do you have, if its even known?  So far, doctors are baffled with what`s
wrong with me.  The only thing theiy can tell me is that there`s no nerve
damage, yet... and lucky/unlucky for me, no operation possible.  Only rest,
of course.  I used to do data entry, I was too good I think, started too
young.  Did too much computer stuff too, side jobs building web pages and
maintaining computer networks.  I was told I could never go back to work in
computers ever, even if my arms should heal fully.  So I went back to
school, trying to actually get a degree and find a career away from
computers.

Chaos

Well I have RSI of a sort but I've never heard of datahand - keyboarding
is only one of many things that aggravate my problem though.  There
doesn't seem much activity here, judging by the fact that I was the only
one to reply to a recent post.  I have been trying Dragon/scansoft voice
recognition software recently which works well enough for dictation, but
is hopeless for writing software.  I know some people are using Dragon
successfully for writing software though.

Graeme