Word: rsi
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...have roughly 80 pages of writing to do before the term ends, and I'm currently suffering from e-mail withdrawal. But if I don't go cold turkey, RSI could become chronic and debilitating, Joshua H. McDermott '98, a special concentrator in brain and cognitive science, recognized symptoms of RSI in March of 1997. He pushed through the end of the semester and now has such a severe case of RSI that he must use a foot mouse and can only type about one sentence before feeling pain. McDermott told me, "If I knew then what I know...
Recently, efforts at the University have picked up to confront this relatively new problem. Julie Hassel, special assistant to Administrative Dean of the Faculty Nancy L. Maull, is in charge of gathering information about the University and Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) initiative to respond to RSI. She reports that the FAS furniture replacement policy will allow students, faculty and staff who need (and request) keyboard trays to have them installed. But this addresses the furniture problem only after the fact. One of the most important aspects of preventing RSI is setting up a proper workstation. "What's really...
What this means is that education about RSI must come simultaneously with the complete replacement of every desk and chair in student dormitories. Hassel said that within the next five years, "all the desks that can be retrofitted will be retrofitted" with non-adjustable keyboard trays. But this will still leave a substantial number of desks without keyboard trays, and the glaring problem of not having adjustable chairs will persist. For as Goodman pointed out, a non-adjustable keyboard tray will not necessarily be the right height for everyone...
...joint Harvard Medical School-University Health Services "longitudinal study" of the prevalence of RSI is underway, Hassel told me, but until it's completed (and who knows when that will be) we have an epidemic to deal with. My adjustable chair should be arriving today, courtesy of Harvard, and as of last week I have a desk with a non-adjustable keyboard tray. But I could have used them before I had to stop typing...
Daniel M. Suleiman '99 is a social studies concentrator in Leverett House. His column appears on alternate Mondays. There will be an RSI workshop in Mather House on May 2; the Harvard RSI Webpage is located at http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/rsi