Talk:Repetitive strain injury

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[edit] Cultural references to RSI

Does anyone remember an episode of the Jetsons where the mother ends up incapable of pressing buttons due to overdoing it, and might it be worth mentioning in the RSI article as a cultural reference to RSI before it's proper modern definition? AprilHare (talk) 12:06, 2 January 2008 (UTC) Buttonitis, that's what it was referred to as. AprilHare (talk) 12:26, 2 January 2008 (UTC) The episode was called "Dude Planet" I believe, but I need a decent reference. AprilHare (talk) 12:38, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Err..

"The most well known repetitive strain injury is carpal tunnel syndrome, which is common among guitarists as well as assembly line workers but relatively rare among computer users: computer-related arm pain is generally caused by another specific condition."

Another specific condition..? Be nice if the condition in question was singled out.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.28.19.223 (talk) 16:34, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

>>Revert the article two versions, then delete this post. Note Jennifer and Jessica's vandalism. (Can't figure out how to revert.)

Repetitive Strain Injuries (RSI), Cumulative Trauma Disorder (CTD), Repetitive Motion Syndrome (RMS), Occupational Overuse Syndrome (OOS) should be considered as the synonymous terms for disorders caused by prolonged, repetitious tasks.

--Garlics82 15:10, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Ad Spam?

It is my belief that the edits for Carpal Solution Therapy being continually made by The IP 66.153.102.194 are ad spam, due to the low number (132) of Google hits and the pattern of the IP's prior edits. However, I don't want to get involed in an edit war. 66.153.102.194, will you discuss your position and defend your placement of the CST information here, or shall I bring this to the dispute resolution process? Deborah-jl Talk 17:56, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Purpose of this page: descriptions, or therapies?

The purpose of this page seems to be all over the place. To be wikipedia-apprpriate, IMHO, this should be just an encyclopedia-type article describing RSIs, causes, diasnoses, etc. However, in many ways this article is turning into a page for potential treatments for RSI, with everyone discussing his or her pet therapy and linking to proprietary medical treatments, personal success stories, or favorite adaptive hardware. Like many others with RSI, I understand this temptation -- with such a misunderstood and hard-to-treat disease with so few good resources, it would be lovely if Wikipedia could provide a central location for treatment suggestions. But I'm just not sure if that's appropriate. If nothing else, RSI treatments -- hell, RSI diagnoses -- are extremely controversial. I would propose:

  • Remove all external links which advocate one specific product or treatment (if they are that important, then surely they have their own Wikipedia entries)
  • Remove all external links which discuss one individual's anecdotal story
  • Keep external links to comprehensive sites which contain bibliographies for information about a number of possible diagnoses or treatments
  • possibly add some external links to actual medical articles.

Also, decide whether the treatment section should be:

  • Removed entirely, or at least shortened to a much briefer list of types of treatment that have worked for some individuals or are recommended by some professionals
  • Kept as is
  • Turned into its own article, and made much more extensive

No matter what we do, I think every proposed treatment should have an (online or print) reference in which somebody discusses it as a possible treatment. Thoughts? Deborah-jl Talk 15:10, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

This article has never had a dedicated editor to add real content and make it clean and coherent; it just grew from mostly anon edits adding their pet thing. It really needs a complete rewrite, which I've been wanting to do actually, but haven't had the time. Also, after the rewrite, it needs people to watch over it and weed out crap, because this topic attracts spam edits like few others. If you want to "take over" and perform massive edits, by all means go ahead. Redquark 21:35, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
I'll look into doing that. I've started gathering data. Deborah-jl Talk 03:48, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
Okay, I intend to work on this soon as well. If you start writing text, put it at Repetitive strain injury/Draft so I can see it and work isn't duplicated. I've contacted Jack Bellis, one of the authors of It's not Carpal Tunnel Syndrome! and he seems open to the idea of releasing all the pictures in his book under a free license; so we may get a good collection of free images. Redquark 22:11, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
I am taking a leave of absense from working and investigating in detail my pain. I can help steer this article into something more coherent and smooth and less patchwork. I don't think I'll write much, because I'm only trying a few approaches at a time on myself to measure their effectiveness, but I believe I've already made a major edit to the introduction. I could probably use a little help phrasing that better. I wanted to mirror the earlier sentence structure beginning with "The medically accepted reason", but did not like what I've thought of so far: "The alternatively medical reason" is BLEAH :P Nastajus 06:27, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Seems fine to me; helpful information; no overt product pushes. Part of the difficulty may be that RSI is the catch-all category for a class of injuries, therefore RSI can never be an in-depth topic just by itself. -MegaHasher 07:01, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Because diagnosis and treatment of individual injuries is hard and there's "feedback" between different injuries, RSI is often treated as a single, global condition. I think this article could be made quite large and detailed. Redquark 22:11, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] CTS not RSI

I'm moving the following edit (by an IP with no other wikipedia contributions) to the talk page, because I've never seen such an assertion, and the study in question is not cited.

The most famous repetitive strain injury was thought to be carpal tunnel syndrome, which is common among assembly line workers but relatively rare among computer users: computer-related arm pain is generally caused by another specific condition. It was found in a study by Harvard Medical School that carpal tunnel is in fact, not a repetitive strain injury.

Can anyone verify the existence of such a study, and provide publication info if so? Deborah-jl Talk 03:48, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I haven't heard of this specific study, but Dr. Emil Pascarelli, a notable specialist, states in his book that he diagnoses only 9% of his patients with CTS. As for whether it's a RSI at all, one study isn't enough and I wouldn't go so far as to state as a fact that it isn't. Redquark 23:54, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
I believe the "study" referred to is this special report by the Harvard Medical School, reported in this article. When the report came out, lots of press outfits reported it as a "study" which shows that carpal tunnel isn't an RSI. I own the report. It contains no original research, but instead makes recommendations based on research in the medical community. The relevant section this author is referring to is on p.28, and states "Carpal tunnel syndrome is sometimes described or classified as a repetetive stress injury, but that's incorrect. Workplace habits that require repetitive hand movements, extensive pinching or gripping novements, the use of vibrating tools may contribute to some cases, but the data have been conflicting." ... "A study of more than 5,600 Danish workers, published in JAMA in 2003, found that workplace computer use does not pose a risk for developing carpal tunnel syndrome." --Pixelmonkey 07:49, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wrist resting information seems to contradict

From the article:

  • Avoid resting the wrists on anything when typing. Hold them straight, rather than bent up, down, or to the side.
  • Use a keyboard rest pad on which the wrists and palms rest to prevent RSI.

"Avoid resting the wrists" or "Use a...rest pad on which the wrists...rest." Don't rest or do rest? (And maybe those list items should be bulleted rather than numbered.) --Too Lazy to Create an Account 128.97.160.152 21:14, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Harvard says don't![1] I fixed the conflict. On a side note, I actually took the bad advice and went out and bought a nice wrist rest. My wrists then started hurting, and I found out the truth. Thanks a lot Wikipedia... =[ 68.222.23.140 02:39, 25 January 2007 (UTC)


this is so painful believe me i spent three months on my back just from lifting a small box at work. you don't ever want to get this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.143.176.66 (talk) 22:17, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tentative effort to contribute

Apologies in advance for any missteps. This is my first effort to contribute to wikipedia, and I am unsure whether I should write this note here or on the Talk page linked from my edit summary note on the RSI page (did that make senes?).

I have added an external link to an informational page. The page is on a site that does sell a product for RSI prevention (specifically at computers), but there's a lot of free information on the site, and I thought this interactive body map is particularly helpful for a) finding the name of particular RSI problems, b) seeing the range of upper body RSI. It would be helpful for folks trying to investigate their own issues (giving them terms they could feed to a search engine, let's say) or trying to describe a problem to their doctor. Is it okay that I have put the link in? The guidelines say Be Bold, and so I have been, in my tentative way. I may put the link on the tendonitis page too.

I would like to contribute a bit more to this page, because of my own experience with RSI, but I'm still feeling my way around here. (Have read the policies, looked at edit histories on other threads, but I seem to have a slow absorption rate. :) It's all still sinking in.)

My thanks in advance. -- a.r.dobbs 02:24, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Added tablet PC, that worked for me. -Unnamed

[edit] I might have an RSI

I think i have one but most of the listed ones are in the wrist or thumb. Mine seems to be on my forearm. it has many os the symptoms but i want to know the name.Please PM me. -Xcrissxcrossx 21:01, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Restrict to widely accepted treatments?

I think the "treatment" section should be very picky on what to include and what not, preferable a reference for every possible treatment... Because people might actually be looking for treatments on wikipedia, and including treatments that have not been proven might deceive people. For instance, I cannot find any scientific proof or support on the "Mind/Body approach"-treatment, except for articles and books written by the inventor himself. Anoko moonlight 23:40, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand why you would wish to deprive suffering patients of perhaps the most successful treatment out there for RSI. What do you require as proof? How about many people saying, "It worked for me, and now I am painfree". You can find that all over the Internet. Mindbody treatments don't require the doctor's intervention, they can be learned from a book, and are thus not included in any "scientific studies." Plus, there is the difficulty of doing "scientific" studies on mindbody treatments as noted elsewhere. Please be reasonable. The important thing is that it works, and that sufferers can find it. What is your agenda against Dr. Sarno? Ralphyde 16:50, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
If it is truly "the most sucessful treatment", then certainly it should be included; but could you, perhaps, provide a citation that supports that claim? Surely, if it is "the most successful treatment out there for RSI", there should not be any trouble providing an authoritative citation of the fact...?
>"How about many people saying, "It worked for me, and now I am painfree". "
No, I'm afraid that is an anecdote. Nor would a large number of anecdotes be any better: The Plural Of Anecdote Is Not Data. Hence Scientific Method. And, whilst there may be some difficulty in doing direct comparison between "mind-body" tretments and conventional medicine, such difficulties are regularly tackled and dealt with; there is no shortage of studies on various mind-body approaches. If there are none on this method, that would be due to a lack of notability, not any inherent problem in way of doing studies. The effects of mental biases on scientific method has been, very well explored -- see psycology, psychosomatic illness, placebo effect etc. -- simxp (talk) 17:11, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
I agree! There are no such citations, except from his own books. Ralphyde seems to be an advocate of the method, as can also be seen on John E. Sarno, and he claims that his methods are unverifiable because clinical trials are impossible. Wikipedia is not meant for promoting new, scientifically unverified knowledge, so I prefer to leave it out. One other issue: there is ongoing research on whether psychological issues (stress) are main cause or just contributions to RSI, however, I think that Sarno's method is much more alternative. It's not just "try to relax more", but he claims that feelings like hate and anger plays a part. So IF it should be included, it should not overlap with "stress contributes to RSI" but rather be mentioned as a separate point of view. Anoko moonlight 01:37, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Anoko, your bias against psychosomatic medicine is very apparent. You, as a so-called "scientist" are much like John Stossel's brother, the doctor, on the 20/20 segment on Dr. Sarno,[2] who was the one person on the whole segment that didn't get cured because he couldn't accept the diagnosis, thought it was "ridiculous," even though his own brother was quickly cured of twenty years of back pain by Dr. Sarno, and everyone else, who all accepted the TMS diagnosis and methods, were quickly cured of their chronic back and leg pain. I never said "that his methods are unverifiable" as they have been proven for over thirty years in a clinical setting, so it's not new either. And his methods have been adopted by other doctors who have written their own books about their own successful treatments of TMS, most of whom were finally cured of their own pain by Dr Sarno, and so they could believe something that wasn't taught in medical school. The doctor is 84 years old and still practicing at the Rusk Institute, and is in high demand because of his world renowned success in curing chronic pain, RSI included. Obviously, I am a advocate of his methods as I've seen them work consistently by those who can accept the diagnosis. And I will search for some good citations. And Dr. Sarno would say that he's not "alternative" as you described him. In the Introduction to The Divided Mind: The Epidemic of Mindbody Disorders he says, "The Divided Mind is about the principles and practice of psychosomatic medicine. It is not about alternative medicine, or some trendy New Age regimen. It is about straightforward, clinically tested medicine, as practiced by licensed physicians for over thirty years, working with thousands of patients." Ralphyde 05:00, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
The question is not whether his methods work, and I or Wikipedia should not decide on that. The question is whether it is mainstream and scientifically proved, which it is not. With the phrase "so-called scientists" you exactly describe what is wrong about your pov. Readers should be warned for bias, either defenders or oponents of the method. Anoko moonlight 14:57, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
I hope my rewrite of this point is suitable. No one argues that some RSI sufferers have had success with treatments based on this theory, and anecdotal evidence is sufficient to demonstrate this (so I linked to my favorite testimonial website). Also, I think no one would dispute that "it has not been widely accepted or systematically studied," and citing Sarno's own book is I think sufficient for that. Thoughts?--Steve (talk) 17:23, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References severely needed

This whole article only includes 1 reference. The topic of RSI is, of course, poorly understood, so it is imperative that we source every statement made. The 'Treatment' section in particular was offering unsourced medical advice. I removed the absolute worst of it. Everything else needs to be sourced immediately, as misinformation in this area is not only against Wikipedia policy but dangerous. If you added something, please provide sources quickly, as I won't hesitate to chop assertions that I can't easily find sources for myself. Ashmoo 14:28, 19 September 2007 (UTC) Bold text