Canadian researchers claim Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is fake - just hysteria

[GL]

Wow

They claim it's a fad disease but the pain is real.

 

[Nutdotnet]

Goofy Canadians.....

 

[GL]

Hey The Mayo Clinic seems to agree.

 

[guyver01]

Yeah... all those wacky people who complain of pain after doing the same job over and over and over.... they were making it up! I knew it! Next, we'll find out that bipolar people and multiple personality disorders were also making it up!

Thanks to those brilliant canadian scientists!!!

 

[Wallydraigle]

I wonder if the people who built the Pyramids or the Great Wall ever got CT?

 

[guyver01]

<< I wonder if the people who built the Pyramids or the Great Wall ever got CT? >>



I think they got dead... which i hear is MUCH worse than CT or RSD

 

[GL]

Everybody read the article before jumping to conclusions. The pain is real, but the disease isn't - even the Mayo Clinic has similar results. I was skeptical until I read the article. The incidents of pain are no more or less than you'd find in people who don't work at computers all day (or do repetitive tasks).

 

[rmeijer]

That is a joke of an article.

 

[Michael]

The comment about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome being hogwash ties in to the research I've done one it.

Michael

 

[GL]

But look at the findings. An epidemic of RSI vanishes in Australia when the gov says they will no longer compensate sufferers. In the U.S. it has been found that RSI cases increase dramatically when claims can be made. Even the Mayo Clinic is saying RSI was a media-spread disease with no scientific-merit to support it.

 

[GL]

(sorry for the short comments...ISP craps out if I post long ones...long story!).

Michael, what findings did you have and what kind of research are you into?

 

[Michael]

I knew someone about 5 years ago who claimed that CFS kept them from working. I went to the library and used the online medical article look-up program to get abstracts of medical research on it. The research basically said that that CFS was not caused by a virus, that it was a mental illness (probably depression) with a new tag attached to it. In my opinion, it also is just an excuse for some people to be lazy.

I also think that ADD is BS and way overdiagnosed.

Michael

 

[kami]

<< Everybody read the article before jumping to conclusions >>


no kidding....typical americans!

 

[rmeijer]

GL, this article is no doubt interesting. Perhaps the &quot;epidemic&quot; was fueled by hysteria of sorts. However:

1) Just because claims decreased in AU doesn't mean that repetitive use of a mouse of keyboard doesn't cause pain.

2) Most people now realize that using mouse/keyboard over and over again all day can cause pain, so they now take breaks or have changed their habits - this again could be the reason cases have dropped.

3) Repetitive behavior such as in factories, tennis players, carpenters, etc have known to develop problems related directly to their work.... are people who pound unusually hard and frequently on their keyboard exempt from this?

ps. interesting debate topic.

 

[Aquaman]

It's gotta be real......... remember that phone sex worker that won a court case against the WCB for CTS

Cheers,
Aquaman

 

[JohnnyKnoxville]

Well I have it in my left hand from playing the guitar 6 hours a day however I think all these so called surgery treatments are scams.My numbness in my pinkey is going away with time and soakings in a jacuzzi

 

[GL]

The main point of the research is that the number of people with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome symptoms is the same, whether you work with computers or not. This is an interesting finding because it can imply that the computers don't cause Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. The article itself implies this is an epidemic with no physical cause (or at least not known).

I myself had wrist pains once but they weren't due to repetitive tasks (I use the computer far more now than I did then). It was due to improper posture where my wrists were at an awkward angle all the time. But the pain wasn't debilitating to the point where I couldn't work - it was more of a &quot;let's take a 30 second break&quot; kind of pain.

There's no doubt some political motivation behind the article, but I don't think you can argue with the scientific findings in it. They are far more credible than the wishy-washy science that was the basis of RSI.

UPDATE: Here is a link to the Mayo Clinic's opinion on Carpal Tunnel Syndrome


<< However, the evidence is not clear on exactly which types of activities cause the syndrome. In particular, and contrary to much popularly held belief, there isn't strong scientific evidence to link computer use to carpal tunnel syndrome. The evidence is stronger for a connection to specific kinds of heavy and repetitive assembly line work and work involving prolonged, heavy gripping and use of vibrating tools. >>