Musculoskeletal disorders of the upper extremities

He reasoned that the advent of the telegraph (telegraphist’s cramps) and steel pens (writer’s cramp) prompted epidemics of hand and wrist complaints but the invention of the typewriter and of the telephone did not, may have as much to do with the general nature of the white-collar workforce and its economic and political circumstances as with the physical demands imposed by the communication instr [...] In addition, the incidence within the telephone industry (one of the industries with the highest incidence), in similar groups of workers, varied significantly from establishment to establishment and from state to state despite the identical nature of the task being performed(20). [...] The WHO stated that the use of precise definitions of the operators’ condition was needed (we will see further in the next chapter of this paper that the same problem with research on the association between musculoskeletal ‘injury’ and VDT work is suffering from the same problem that the WHO reviewers found in 1984). [...] Cross sectional studies reported that the prevalence of musculoskeletal symptoms in the neck/shoulder region among VDT workers varied from 10% - 62% in the US (the large differences in the size of the prevalence may be in part attributed to the differences in the case definition employed in different studies. [...] Upon reviewing the two documents mentioned above, the EBPG has undertaken a critical appraisal and systematic review of the literature with the objectives of: 1. critically appraising the 2 supporting documents(115,116) submitted to WorkSafeBC 2. critically appraising and review of any primary studies identified and used in the supporting document ‘Musculoskeletal disorders of the hand, wrist, for