The Mouse Syndrome is no laughing matter!

or Repetitive Strain Injury  (RSI)

• Are you suffering from tingling or numbness in your fingers and wrists?
• Do you have the slept-on-my-arm-all-night-long feeling?
• Is the burning sensation in your wrist not going away despite the many breaks and hand stretching exercises done while working at your computer?

Then you might be a victim of an increasingly more common and painful disorder known as Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) or more commonly called the Mouse Syndrome. These injuries are caused by numerous hours of frequent, repetitive movements while using the beloved computer mouse. Yes. That innocent-looking little piece of hardware is inconspicuously causing a new epidemic of pain and discomfort.

Actually, it’s not the poor mouse’s fault, but rather the way we use the mouse for hours on end. The constant and incessant clicking, drag-dropping, scrolling, and clutching plus the added pressure of guiding and grabbing the mouse to perform accurate and precise manoeuvres, all add up to muscle distortion and muscle tension causing damaging painful strains on the hands, wrists and forearms. When left unchecked, this tension can escalate to a chronic condition typical of the Mouse Syndrome.

How do we get rid of it?

Unfortunately, there is no sure-fire cure at the moment, (short of an operation). Only preventive measures are suggested. The best one, bar none, is replacing the beloved mouse with innovative computer input devices called the graphics tablets and touch tablets. And no, you don’t have to be a professional artist or designer to own one.

Bamboo / Bamboo Touch Tablet

The best graphic tablet presently on the market is designed by the many award-winning WACOM, world leader in touch display technology.

A Wacom graphics tablet, also known as a digitizer pen tablet or drawing tablet, plugs into your computer via a USB port. However, that’s it for cords. Since the drawing tablet powers the digitizer pen by electromagnetic resonance, the pen, which is used instead of the mouse, is cordless and battery free. The freedom of movement that this light, untethered stylus provides is truly liberating.

Recently, Wacom released a new tablet which responds to human touch.  With just a tap of a finger, Bamboo Touch tablets can outperform the conventional mouse when it comes to basic navigating tasks like scrolling vertically or horizontally, rotating images or flicking through document pages.  This faster and easier way of interacting with your computer can really help in relieving discomfort and soreness.

The combination of multi-touch technology, ergonomic digitizer pens, and the numerous features of the graphic tablet creates many keyboard shortcuts which eliminate a lot of strenuous, repetitive tasks.  In addition, it has numerous pressure sensitivity levels (the normal computer mouse only has one) which greatly enhance accuracy and precision. The result: less muscle stress and less pain.

For those who hate to say goodbye to their mouse

Wacom Intuos3 6x8 Graphic Tablet

If you can’t see yourself part with your computer mouse, the Wireless Graphire Bluetooth Pen Tablets, and the Intuos4  Drawing Tablets not only come with a digitizer pen, but a cordless, battery-free, laser-free and ball-free digitizer mouse as well. As a matter of fact, frequently switching from the mouse to the pen is highly recommended as a way of reducing muscle tension which can lead to the dreaded Mouse Syndrome.

This injury is no laughing matter. It can be extremely painful and debilitating. It can even ruin a computer-based career. That is why replacing your computer mouse with a graphic tablet can be a very smart approach to preventing and even reversing the effects of RSI.

How do I know? Because, I once suffered from the Mouse Syndrome.

Anita Gosselin-Pratt
Coordinator at www.DrawitTablet.com

We are always interested in knowing how other people have dealt with and treated the Mouse Syndrome related discomforts and pain.