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wrist pains



Adding my own two cents (about what it's worth) on the subject of wrist
pain, in my now almost eighteen years of computer writing (first on a Radio
Shack Model 3, then with Xywrite on pc's) averaging between six to eight
hours a day, I have experienced finger and wrist pain in only the following
cases:

1. Repeatedly using the mouse left click button. My forefinger would begin
to experience a twinge with each click. Solution: switch hands, or (a much
better solution) learn to make the same commands on the keyboard. I have
found that one can reduce your mouse use to practically nil if you spend a
little time learning the keyboard commands. The benefits, besides
eliminating wrist and finger pain, is that you actually can work faster.
Anyone who is a touch typist who does not learn the keyboard commands is
wasting a lot of time unnecessarily.

2. Spelling checking a very long series of documents in Xywrite and
repeatedly making the same awkward keyboard commands using the top row of
function keys. Solution: Remap the Spell check keys to the numerical
keyboard. This solution works for the same reasons #3 below works.

3. Writing a long manuscript using a keyboard that had too soft a touch. My
old Radio Shack Model 3 was blessed with a keyboard that gave me a
pleasantly resistant feel with each keypress. In fact, the resistant was
strong enough and deep enough for me to actually REST my fingers on the keys
between presses----much like an old manual typewriter!

Keyboards today are so mushy that if you try to rest your fingers on the
keys you end up pressing them. This mushiness forces you to keep your
fingers in the air, a tense position which also forces you to put the entire
weight of your hands on their heels just above the wrists. Very bad.

Solution: get a keyboard with as deep and as resistant as feel as possible.
Unfortunately, few keyboards today are like that. When I upgraded to a newer
faster machine, I was very lucky to obtain an IBM keyboard that, though the
key presses were still not as deep or as heavy as I'd like, still lets me
rest my fingers on the keys between keystrokes.

4. I have also found that wrist and finger pain can also be caused by
repeatedly reaching sideways for either the mouse or the cursor keys,
thereby bending the wrist sideways and causing discomfort. Solution: remap
the keyboard so that my cursor keys are very close at hand, and so that the
most important and oft-used commands on right there, on the keyboard, rather
than off on the right. I can see that the Wordstar diamonds that some have
mentioned here in the last few weeks follow this same plan, and would work
well also.

In general, I have found that the wrist angle up or down has made no
difference to me at all. I have never owned a wrist rest (which appear to
have become almost standard on many keyboards today), and have no need for
them. As long as the keyboard provides me the sufficient resistance, I can
type for days on end with no pain.

In fact, if the keyboard provides sufficient resistance I find that I can
position the keyboard right on the edge of my desk so that my wrists hang
off its edge, literally holding no weight at all. My hands are relaxed, with
my fingers flowing over the keyboard, resting on the keys between
keystrokes. Very pleasant, an experience that makes writing feel almost like
one is molding clay.

Of course, much of what I'm talking about here depends totally on my own
personal taste. What works for me might fail for others.

Bob
___________________________
Bob Zimmerman
13909 Briarwood Drive, #323
Laurel, Maryland 20708
301-604-2255