Re: [SAGE] Suggestions for Dvorak (learning/good keyboards/etc)

["David N. Blank-Edelman" <dnb@ccs.neu.edu>]

Hi Glenn-

I'm also in the RSI camp, though not with elbow issues. I agree with
observations/advice so far (especially Trey's comment about this being an
very idiosyncratic problem). Here's a few of my suggestions:

1) <semi-bitter rant>At the point when it was at the worst for me about 10
   years ago, I came to the conclusion that the "S for Syndrome" part in
   the name was a euphemism in the Western medical community for "We have
   no idea." We have no idea why you got this pain, why others don't, and
   just what to do to help you. All we know is what helps some people some
   of the time, so here: try all of these things, maybe one of them will
   work. You won't really know what helped because you'll be doing
   everything at once, but hey, you'll feel better. Eventually you'll
   figure out what it was because you'll stop doing the other stuff
   on your own (prescription by attrition).</semi-bitter rant>

   Ultimately I had to step outside of this model to get relief. Yes,
   changing behavior helped some, but really the one thing that worked for
   me (and continues to work for me) is acupuncture. I'm just bringing this
   up just so you know there are other avenues to deal with this stuff
   besides what your doctor says.

2) For several years I used the the win32 version of the program WorkPace
   (www.workpace.com) as my "take a break" software because it seemed to be
   the best of the lot. I see they have support for MacOS, Linux, Solaris
   and HP-UX in their new version, but I haven't tried it. 

   The thing I liked most about it was it had this concept of "micro-
   breaks." The vast majority of the software out there for this issue has
   you work for N minutes and then rest for M minutes (e.g. work for 45,
   rest for 5). Workpace can do this, but it also has an optional setting
   that says work for N minutes (for some small value of N), rest for 7 or
   8 seconds. I found it made a lot of sense to stop typing for 7 or 8
   seconds after a jag of 10 or 15 minutes of straight typing. A five or
   seven minute break is long enough to break your concentration at an
   arbitrary point, but having to wait a few seconds before continuing
   isn't nearly as annoying.

3) I don't know how up to date this book is (or even how good its advice
   is), but I found one part of "Pain Free at Your PC" by Pete Egoscue to
   be helpful. Specifically, there's a section in this book on the
   diagnostic tests a doctor uses to determine what is going on around this
   subject. I found it very empowering to know just what I was being asked
   to do and why during the initial diagnostic phases.

Hope some of this stuff helps, I'm more than happy to talk more about this
offline if any of my experience can be helpful to you. I know just how
un-fun this stuff can get.

        -- dNb