Old rusty typewriters may have been replaced by sleek and gleaming computers, allowing your fingers to fly across the keyboard at a phenomenal speed of 240 strokes a minute. But you may be courting a serious neurological disorder in the process, besides impairing your vision, warn doctors.
As advanced technologies breed sophisticated maladies, more and more white-collar professionals, assembly line workers and students are not only disappearing behind thick glasses, but also experiencing numbness in fingers and shooting pain in shoulder blades.
Doctors have given it the name of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.
While the ultra-violet rays that bounce off the screen have the potential to damage sensitive retina like as the sun's rays, the furious pounding at tiny keyboards can permanently immobilise your hands, in extreme cases, says Dr Vijay Sheel Kumar, the former head of the Neurosurgery Department at the Mercy Hospital, New York.
CTS, one of the most commonly known Repetitive Stress Injuries, is so called because the pain begins in the wrist (or the muscular capsule) and then spreads until it reaches the shoulder and neck. The pain is severe and can even lead to formation of a ganglion, explains Dr Kumar, who was a neurosurgery professor at the State University of New York and also worked at Apollo Hospital in Delhi.
Computers are not the only culprits. Addiction with playing games on mobile phones or sending SMSs, whether as a habit or part of professional requirement, can also lead to CTS, says Dr Kumar, who is the director of the Gurgaon-based Pain Clinic.
The most important symptoms of CTS are numbness, tingling and pain in fingers (except the little finger) and hands upon waking in the morning, weak hands and a tendency to drop objects. Once CTS has progressed beyond a certain point, it may require surgery to correct the problem.
CTS is considered an inflammatory disorder caused by repetitive stress or physical injuries that cause the soft tissues across the median nerve to become swollen. In the early stages, this compression on the swollen nerve causes pins and needles sensation. In severe cases, the muscle at the base of thumb may atrophy and hand functions may be permanently impaired.
"Much like stepping on a garden hose will slow the flow of water, compression on the nerve fibres by the swollen soft tissue in and round the carpal tunnel results in a slower transmission of nerve signals through the tunnel," explains Dr Kumar.
The CTS victims, till recently, were meat packers who had to slice scores of carcasses everyday, auto workers who had to drive the same screws hour after hour, or food processors.
Today, the victims are white-collar professionals, clerical workers, scribes racing against time to meet deadlines, airline personnel spending endless hours checking reservations, secretaries typing out notes in plush cabins of corporate offices, telephone reservationists, cashiers and word processors. The more human beings interact with machines, the more pervasive the CTS becomes.
While schools may encourage their pupils to grow up computer-savvy, the big culprits are software games that become a kind of chewing gum for eyes, says the doctor. Once hooked, kids can play for hours with an addictive compulsion. The psychological high is confined not only to the kids; even sane adults are turning into computer junkies spending hours playing sedentary golf, tennis, chess or simply shooting down enemies on screen.
Besides working on computer keyboard or typewriter, common activities that have been identified as contributing to repetitive stress induced CTS syndrome include construction work such as handling many bricks, stone or lumber and excessive play of percussion instruments. Those engaged in beedi-making or embroidery works are also susceptible to it.
A group of hobbyists known as speed-cubists, who solve Rubik's Cube as fast as possible for competitions, are known to have been prone to CTS from turning the sides of their cubes in such a fast matter, which causes the problems cubist's thumb and Rubik's Wrist.