#1

Before the modern days this was mainly an industrial, assembly line disease for people sufferring repetitive stess injuries like knife using fish eviscerators etc. Seems like it should have popped up way before now for typewriter users in the 1930’s or 1940’s. Why is it mainly associated with computer keyboards and not recognized in earlier times for manual typewriter typists ? I’m 44 and I had never even heard of carpal tunnel syndrome until (IIRC) the 1980’s or so in conjunction with computer keyboard use.

#2

First, there are many more keyboard users now. This activity used to be reserved only to those employed in a clerical field. Many of them were light users, also. The use of a typewriter for recreation was nonexistent.

Also, people who had this condition in the past tended to shrug off the pain, or put up with it in the belief that doctors couldn’t help much (as, indeed, they couldn’t). Even just a few decades ago, people would often live with chronic pain modern patients aren’t willing to tolerate.

All in all, better to recognize a problem and do something about it.

#3

Also, early typewriters weren’t very reliable. You’d have to stop, piddle with the thing, and then go back to typing. There’s some evidence that “writer’s cramp” is a form of CTS, but there’s nothing concrete, AFAIK.

#4

Manual typwriters require the user to stop typing a lot more frequently than computers do, since you have to manually move that little lever thing on the roller for a carriage return and after each page you have to stop for several seconds to load a new sheet of paper. These forced breaks from typing reduced the length of time the user was engaged in the repitive action that causes carpal tunnel. Even electric typewriters which handled the carriage return bit for you at the end of each line still required you stop every couple minutes to futz with a new sheet of paper. It wasn’t until computers came along and eliminated the need to stop typing that we could seriously injure ourselves at the keyboard.

#5

Manual typwriters require the user to stop typing a lot more frequently than computers do, since you have to manually move that little lever thing on the roller for a carriage return and after each page you have to stop for several seconds to load a new sheet of paper. These forced breaks from typing reduced the length of time the user was engaged in the repitive action that causes carpal tunnel. Even electric typewriters which handled the carriage return bit for you at the end of each line still required you stop every couple minutes to futz with a new sheet of paper. It wasn’t until computers came along and eliminated the need to stop typing that we could seriously injure ourselves at the keyboard.

#6

Argh! sorry bout the double post. Damn squirrels.

#7

I also think it is more accurate diagnosis. My wife has CTS but never types. No one knows why it sometimes just spontaneously occurs

#8

I dont’ want to start a Great Debate about this but do you think it could have something to do with the fact that most heavy users of typewriters way back when were women? Could it be that it wasn’t until men started typing more and getting it that it was considered “common” and “serious”?

That is in relation to typewriters, of course. I know for sure that men doing monotonous work at factories or any other job can also get CTS (my dad had it) but perhaps because their wrist muscles were stronger to begin with they didn’t get it as much as you’d think (like how TMJ affects women more than men, because we generally have weaker jaw muscles).

#9

Telegraph operators used to get something they called “glass arm”. I’ve seen speculation that was carpal tunnel syndrome – see this link for more details.

#10

The keys on manual typewriters were placed at a much steeper angle than those of a modern keyboard. ~30° on older models. The lowest keys were also placed an inch or more above the desktop. This limited the amount of typing that could be accomplished by resting ones wrists on the table, and pivoting the wrist joint.

#11

Repetitive stress injuries are hardly new; only recently have they been addressed in a systematic fashion. My great-grandmother labored in a local factory in the first decade of the 20th century, and had to come home and ice her hands and wrists every day to try to diminish the pain. But there was no worker’s comp, and no paid sick time. She barely saved enough to visit a doctor, who advised aspirin, and then morphine if aspirin wasn’t adequate. If she didn’t do the job she’d be fired, and as a widow with two girls to support, she just suffered.

Frankly, a lot of complaints from Repetitive Stress Injury sufferers in earlier eras were attributed to lack of proper work ethic, and neuroses.

#12

This is one of the questions from the “Why” books by Joel Achenbach of the Washingon Post, and he fully supports the idea that the manuals made you fool around with so much other stuff that the percentage of time spent typing was much smaller.

Also remember that many things typed into computers these days would never have been typed at before affordable PCs. Even the (small-time) accountants were using handwritten ledgers. My grandfather retired as an accountant in the early 80s, and I don’t think he ever used a computer in his entire life, period.

#13

Don’t forget about the mouse, which I think is probably as much of a contributory factor as the keyboard, perhaps more. Appealing as “point and click” interfaces were when they first started showing up, most pointing devices are ergonomic disasters. Every so often I switch to mousing left handed to let my right wrist heal.

I’ve often wondered if we shouldn’t operate a pointing device with our feet instead. And get carpal tunnel syndrome in our ankles.

#14

That’s tarsal tunnel syndrome.

Really, people. Repetitive stress injuries (RSI) have been around for a long time. It’s not just due to the advent of the computer. Although said innovation does bring the keyboard to more people, who use it more, and voila, more wrist pain.

But complaints of RSI date back to the early industrial age, when some poor zhlub got designated to insert rod A into hole B over and over again. Weavers and loomworkers, were particularly subject to the problem.

#15

Have any of the prior posters actually used a manual typewriter? It’s a lot of work, and your fingers move far more than they do with an electric typewriter or computer keyboard.

#16

Yup. And I’d love to have an old Underwood typewriter.

#17

I highly doubt it in the light you have put it. I think we are becomming more aware of problems as actual medical conditions in general. We are not blindly following doctors anymore and in so have forced the doctors to start looking at issues differently, to actually try to understand what the patiant is suffering from, not what the Dr. thinks it’s from.

I know it’s hard to understand that papagraph but it’s the best I could think of right now.

#18

My grandmother had to have an operation for carpal tunnel syndrome back in the mid-70s. She had used a typewriter since the end of WWII, and she’s never touched a computer.

#19

I miss the sound of an IBM Selectric. Chuh-chuh-chuhuhchuh.Thwap! Chuhchuhchuhchuh. Oops-ball stuck!

#20

My worst injury from an old manual (not electric) typrewriter? I hurt my back! Lower lumbars are toast to this day…

Okay, okay, so I was six years old and my friend and I were building a rocket ship in my basement – or at least just “The Bridge” like on Star Trek – and we thought the typewriter would be cool as a “computer.” The huge old typewriter was almost ten pounds, I lifted with my back not my knees ('cause I didn’t know any better), and carried it through the house down to our rocket ship in the basement.

I have actually used that typewriter – the ergonomics are totally different than a keyboard. As Squink pointed out, the keys are very high and really stiff to hit, so I ended up typing using a “hunt-and-peck” method because I had to raise my arm and drop it like a hammer. Typing a little too fast made all the little hammer-thingies jumble up in a sort of traffic jam, so I was forever unclogging the tangled up letters.

Totaly different experience than a modern keyboard.

Yabob I’ve seen advertizements for mouse-like devices that are operated with one’s feet.