Deal With
Wrist Problems Now,
Before They Become Chronic
by Steve Cohen
Hand and wrist problems are becoming more common every day. The Clinton administration recently proposed landmark workplace guidelines for the prevention of repetitive motion illness, but evidence of the problem is obvious much closer to home-in your local drugstore. The Savon in my neighborhood now carries five different kinds of wrist braces.
If you're having wrist pain or numbness of any kind see your doctor immediately. Once repetitive motion problems begin, they're not likely to go away without medical treatment, behavioral changes or both. Your body is sending you a message to stop what you are doing and the message will only become more insistent with time. The Avid is not kind to wrists because it requires so much double clicking. New capabilities, namely audio control via 'rubber bands' and visual effects work, require slow, precisely controlled mouse moves that can be hard on your hands.
To reduce pain you should begin to study your behavior and identify the motions that cause trouble. Since much of what we do is unconscious, you may need to have someone watch you work. Pain from double clicking can occur anywhere along an imaginary line between your index finger and elbow. Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is characterized by numbness in the fingers and hand but may produce pain, as well.
Many people find a two button mouse to be helpful in reducing pain from double clicking. The idea is to make the second button perform a double click, allowing you to load a shot into a monitor with one click. Though it seems like a small thing, I've spoken to several people who've found that their pain disappeared after only a few days of working this way. Kensington makes very nice two and four button mice for the Mac. (They also make trackballs that many people swear by).
You should clean your mouse regularly. Get a bottle of 91% isopropyl alcohol and a package of cotton swabs from the drug store. Open the mouseball cover and clean the wheels that contact the ball with a moistened swab. Clean the ball itself, as well. Do this whenever moving the mouse feels 'bumpy', or whenever mouse movement doesn't produce proportional movement on the screen. You may be surprised at how much this improves the responsiveness of your computer.
Working with keyframes to do Avid sound or visual effects work seems to create pain for some people. There are no keyboard shortcuts for these controls and they rely on tiny, precise movements. Many volume changes require you to move a keyframe by a single pixel. This means you have to hold the mouse button down and slowly move the mouse a short distance on the tabletop. A wrist brace may help to counteract pain by keeping your wrist in a 'neutral' position, but it can also make your hand feel constrained.
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I've recently seen a brace you may like better. It's called the 'Smart Glove' and instead of placing a rigid splint under the palm as most braces do, it employs a flexible plastic support on top of the hand. This controls your wrist movement in a more gentle way. It also employs a beanbag-like support under the palm. It's made of stretch fabric, so there are no straps to adjust-you just slip it on. It's much less restrictive than a traditional brace, but it may not produce as much control as you need.
Like it or not, until computers become more organic, repetitive motion problems are going to be part of our lives. If you suffer from this kind of pain see your doctor as soon as possible, before your problem becomes chronic. The suggestions in this article may or may not work for you. The specifics aren't as important as the need to take the issue seriously, work with your doctor and keep experimenting until you find a solution. The cost of a few mice or wrist braces is minimal compared to the possibility of a long-lasting handicap.
Steve Cohen is a Guild Board member,
news editor of the Guild home page and
interim editor of the Newsletter. He is currently cutting
'Fifteen Minutes' for New Line.
He can be reached via email.
Reprinted from
The Motion Picture Editors Guild Newsletter
Vol. 21, No. 1 - Jan/Feb 2000
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