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March 24, 2008, 11:05 am
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Why is carpal tunnel down?

BY ELLEN SIMON | THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

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Can a workplace epidemic be cured?

With the personal computing boom of the 1990s came thousands of "repetitive stress injuries" or "repetitive strain injuries." RSI became the hip medical acronym of the keyboard era, with subset carpal tunnel syndrome the diagnosis of the day.

"At its height of diagnosis, anybody showing up at a doctor's office with wrist pain or hand pain was being diagnosed with carpal tunnel," said Carol Harnett, vice president of insurer Hartford Financial Services Group Inc.'s group benefits division.

Since then, carpal tunnel cases have plummeted, declining 21 percent in 2006 alone, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Among workers in professional and business services, the number of carpal tunnel syndrome cases fell by half between 2005 and 2006.

What changed?

First, it may not have been the white-collar epidemic it appeared to be.

A 2001 study by the Mayo Clinic found heavy computer users (up to seven hours a day) had the same rate of carpal tunnel as the general population. Harvard University headlined a 2005 press release "Computer use deleted as carpal tunnel syndrome cause."

"Clearly, if keyboarding activities were a significant risk for carpal tunnel, we should have seen, over the last 10 to 15 years, an explosion of cases," said Dr. Kurt Hegmann, director, the Rocky Mountain Center for Occupational & Environmental Health. "If keyboarding were a risk, it cannot be a strong factor."

Blue-collar workers, especially those doing assembly-line work such as sewing, cleaning and meat or poultry packing, have a far greater incidence of carpal tunnel than white-collar workers, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Most doctors have dropped the term RSI, calling them "musculoskeletal disorders" while government agencies like "cumulative trauma disorders."

As carpal tunnel is strongly linked with aging, obesity and diabetes, "it means we should have more cases than we have," says Dr. Hegmann.

Carpal Tunnels was another case of fear mongering by big pharma. They created a disease in order to sell a medication to cure the problem. Not a bad way to make money.

I never heard of these facts before. I spend a lot of hours on the computer and have beginning stages of carpal tunnel. I am told by my Dr. that If I keep working on computers as much as I do, I will have full blown carpal tunnel in less than five years.

I always wondered if they made it up just to give it a new name (carpal tunnel now, as it was just arthritis back in the old days).

I think it was another case of jumping on the latest diagnosis bandwagon. You see a rise in incidence whenever a new illness/disorder becomes "popular". Eventually the facts get straightened out and the diagnosis level falls back to normal.

Having worked with someone with advanced CT (who continually tried to sue our employer) I would have to say I am very leery of this. I have experienced symptoms myself, but nothing I couldn't get rid of overnight so long as I didn't continue the same thing. Since my work requires quick, repetitive use of a mouse or number pad to review computer data I slowed down and had no issues. I think they have come to realize just like all hyper kids don't have ADD 

I worked for 55-90 hours a week on the computer for over 15 years. I developed carpal tunnel in both wrists as well as tendon, nerve and joint damage. A lot of this was caused from too many hours and inappropriate equipment. The company I worked for didn't believe in investing in the proper furniture for the task. As an example, the desk heights were too high and the chair heights were too low which resulted in employees putting unnecessary and inappropriate strain on their bodies while working. I knew I had a problem when my arms would fall asleep at night from the shoulders on down. To this day my arms always feel like ants are crawling all over them and if I even tap my wrist on a hard surface it sends what feels like an electrical shock right up my arm. So I think carpal tunnel is based on the individual and how their body reacts to repetitive strain.