Carpal Tunnel and Stress Relief from the Computer Part 1
Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is the most common peripheral nerve compression disorder in adult population accounting for 90% of all entrapment neuropathies.[1,2] Additionally, CTS is one of the musculoskeletal disorders that is often described as an occupational hazard, including occupations involving computer use.[3,4,5,6,7] Census 2011 revealed that more than 23 million households (9.4%) in India have a computer in their house.[8] In the year 2016, country’s total number of Internet users was about 462 million, which was 13.5% of world Internet users.[9]
Looking at the huge population working on computers as well as accessing Internet, upper limb nerve injuries such as CTS may emerge out as a common disorder, if it is related to computer use. High rates of repetitive movement of the wrists, working with bent wrists, forceful hand motions, and improper rests of the hands and wrists may result in CTS in computer operators. There are several studies done to find out the relationship between CTS and computer use.[4,5,6,7,10,11,12,13,14,15] However, clear consensus is lacking as far as the association between use of computer and risk of possible CTS is concerned. Hence, this study was conducted with the aim to assess this association.