Relieve Repetitive Strain Injuries Research Insights showcases research findings from the Institute's Working Paper series. In summarizing and interpreting our research, our goal is to provide tools to improve your understanding of workplace health, injury, and disability, and the effectiveness of care once injury has occurred. WMSDs are painful and debilitating, usually resulting in intense discomfort in the neck, shoulders and upper limbs and in some cases the lower back. In the early stages, the movement that is causing the injury becomes difficult to perform, in more advanced stages, it becomes impossible. The problem has been aggravated by technological advances in the workplace in which increasing numbers of people perform the same repetitive movements throughout their day.
Researchers have to cope with a number of issues that tend to complicate studies of WMSDs.
One is how WMSDs are defined. A non-exhaustive search of the research literature found a minimum of 21 different definitions. Differing definitions means that it becomes difficult to compare results across studies and formulate generalizable conclusions. Research is also complicated by the highly individualized nature of some WMSDs such as carpel tunnel syndrome. Individual characteristics of the person's condition and of their work mean that it is difficult to describe a common condition as well as symptoms of WMSDs.