Intervention trials on upper body pain among computer operators

Computer work is now one of the most widespread work tasks in the world. In some western countries more than half of the workforce use a computer station for more than half of their working day. Adverse effects of the computer could thus have a large impact on public health, even if effect sizes are small. Most concern has been expressed about pain and disorders of the musculoskeletal system in those using the keyboard for data entry and other keying tasks, and in the use of the computer mouse and other input devices.¹

Concern about non-specific neck and arm pain is not new but has existed for centuries, various terms being used at different times according to the suspected causal exposures and affected populations (for example, writers’ cramp, telegraphists’ cramp).² At the present time, however, no well established and clinically accepted diseases of the musculoskeletal system have been ascribed with certainty to computer use. On the contrary, several large epidemiological studies encompassing clinical …