Word: dr
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Dr. Chris Coley is the closest thing there is to an authority on RSI (or, to be technically correct, RSIs; RSI is, in the words of a Harvard-Radcliffe RSI Action Group handout, "an umbrella term for a variety of injuries: tendinitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, cubital tunnel syndrome, etc.") at Harvard. A physician at University Health Services (UHS), Dr. Coley has made a professional hobby of the disease. He candidly admits that "It s really something that most physicians know very little about." A survey he has conducted collaboratively with the Computer Science Department will, once examined, hopefully provide...
...Progress on analyzing the results is slow since Dr. Coley, lacking research assistants, runs the numbers by himself in his free time. So far, however, they do reflect the feeling around campus, or what Dr. Coley more clinically refers to as the "anecdotal experience of Harvard undergraduates." It looks, he reported, "like the number of new cases this year compared to last is actually less." This result is far from decisive, but it is the clearest index of a change that is available since both UHS and the Student Disabilities Office refused to release any numbers for publication...
...everyone sees a drop, however. Rachel W. Podolsky 00, co-chair of the RSI Action Group, attests that there is a significant number of students who are reporting RSIs this year, a population she labels a "large but silent majority." Indeed, Dr. Coley s numbers do not show a total disappearance, merely a dip. Even this trend, however, is puzzling. Why, in a student population that uses computers every bit as much as it did last year, should the RSI flag? Where, for that matter, did it come from in the first place...
...Perhaps the most often-asked question about RSIs is one of origins. Why haven t we heard of it before? Dr. Coley answers that RSIs are not new. In fact, "cumulative stress disorders," as he calls them, have been "well-known in a few professions for a long time. Meatpackers, as well as truck drivers and seamstresses, have had to deal with RSIs for years. The best known among those trades was carpal tunnel syndrome, an inflammation of the nerves in the forearm that often resulted from strenuous work with heavy vibrations-something along the lines of working a jackhammer...
...maybe the RSI story is a success story. Dr. Coley believes that it is. He sees the drop in cases stemming from an increase in awareness and the concomitant employment of preventative measures. These are the beginnings of what he hopes will be a "culture of healthy computing." For him, RSIs are "largely mechanical problems," and the solution is therefore mechanical as well. As he noted, "Recent studies of white-collar work environments show that enforced ergonomic changes have helped with the problem...