Press Comments on Ergonomic Keyboards

Therapy Weekly, Jan 22 1998

"Computer-users can avoid the development of muscular pains if they choose the right input device. Therapists have an important role to play here in advising on types of keyboard, mouse and computer table.

At a time when most students, teachers, lecturers and managers are expected to type reports and letters, Ann's experience is not unusual.

As a university lecturer she had to work on a computer keyboard to prepare a book manuscript. She suffered incapacitating pain in her neck and in both shoulders and wrists.

When both her arms then became swollen and so painful that she could not sleep at night her doctor diagnosed RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury).

She was forced to take three months leave and consulted a physiotherapist, who diagnosed tenosynovitis of the extensor carpi ulnaris tendons and a severe hypertonia of the levator scapulae muscle.

The conventional flat keyboard forces the user to hold the wrists in a static adducted position which increases tension and reduces circulation of the carpal tendons.

If the user continues despite the pain these tendons can become chronically inflamed, resulting in long-term disability. In the UK, compensation of more than £80,000 for one person with RSI has become common.

However, many sufferers do not receive any compensation and some decide to retrain to get away from the typewriter or computer.

Last year, three workers in the USA successfully sued a keyboard manufacturer for not highlighting the dangers of word-processing on a flat keyboard when ergonomically-friendly keyboards were readily available.

Luckily, Ann's physiotherapist got to know the benefits of the Maltron keyboard, which had been invented in the 1970's by Stephen Hobday and Lilian Malt.

The Maltron user places the wrists in a relaxed, neutral position - a position so positive for fingers that typing records have been broken on this keyboard.

It took Ann a month to get used to the keyboard and after a gradual build-up she was able to undertake her old word-processor workload without a reoccurrence of wrist pain."

QA Schools Magazine, November 1997

Veronica Still, Editor's Letter.

"It's always useful when I have an opportunity to test out the products and services that we write about in this magazine and I have had first hand (literally!) experience of an unusual looking product. Like many people who use a computer keyboard regularly I have never thought beyond possible eye strain from too bright a screen so I was pretty dismayed when last Autumn I started to get painful wrists.

Eventually, I decided that I would have to get something done and saw my GP who said I had a ganglion which would have to be removed surgically. I am one of those people who like to find out if there is a more gentle way of dealing with problems - particularly as often they are unknowingly self-induced. To cut a long story short I have had my tenosynovitis in both wrists (not a ganglion!) successfully treated by a surgeon who used acupuncture techniques.

However, whenever I used my keyboard it seemed I was undoing his good work. I decided to try out Maltron's ergonomic keyboard which is recommended for anyone suffering from my problem (better known as RSI - repetitive strain syndrome). The keyboard is shaped and curved for both hands and the keys are separated to the right and left with numbers and control keys in the middle. It was rather frustrating in the beginning, because although the keys are in the same position the brain has to get used to different movements of the fingers and there is less stretching and thus less strain on the hands and wrists.

It really has been worth the effort. My tenosynovitis has been effectively treated and I can continue to do my work without exacerbating the problem. Maltron has a range of specialist keyboards and I can certainly vouch for mine. If you or your staff are suffering from RSI then it certainly is worth a call to the company. "

Disability Times - January 1995

As keyboard operators suffering the agonies of RSI form a long queue to take employers to court, Disability Times heard about a keyboard which has proved over one hundred times that using a keyboard and developing RSI are not necessarily brothers-in-arms. Indeed the company in question, PCD Maltron, has other ergonomic keyboards that are also suitable for those with limited use of their limbs. Stephen Hobday has developed versions for left-handed or right-handed or mouth-stick use.

When Disability Times visited PCD Maltron's East Molesey office and manufacturing complex, we found that our definitely not-touch-type fingers found the home keys naturally and that we could type without stress or strain on wrists, forearms, neck or back! They also insisted that we tried out his latest training aid in the form of a floppy disc which not only told our fingers what to do, but interspersed the exercises with postural advice, relaxing wisdom and then encouraged or reproached as necessary.

The two-handed keyboard which boasts a record of getting over one hundred sufferers from RSI back to work is equally effective in easing the symptoms before the pain gets bad enough to warrant sick leave. Both the two-handed and one-handed versions look like empty grapefruit skins with roller coaster keys set at an angle. PCD Maltron's MD Stephen Hobday and co-designer Lillian Malt have fully ergonomically positioned keys to suit the easy movements of hands and fingers and eliminate dangerous wrist twist.

These new keyboards are supplied with letters in the QWERTY layout which is still universally used though by no means ideal. The QWERTY setup was carefully arranged to slow down operators and reduce type bars jamming in 1872!

Maltron have themselves developed a new layout which is easier to learn and reduces `fingerwork' to about one tenth demanded by the QWERTY layout. This Maltron layout is optionally available on the two-handed keyboards and can be learnt in around a quarter of the time usually needed.

In one case, the Maltron keyboard has proved to be more effective in getting an operator back to work than physiotherapy, and that is the physiotherapist's opinion. Sandie Maile of the Society of Telecomm Executives was just about ready to give up keyboard work due to the constant nagging pains of RSI. A few months later she was still at work with her `comfortable Maltron' keyboard and four years later she was still working.

Hobday's eighteen years of dedication to the development of this wrist-saving keyboard have now been formally recognised by ROSPA in its annual awards at the Health and Safety Exhibition at Birmingham's NEC.

Computing, 9.12.93

"When an operator in the word-processing pool of Lincolnshire County Council's highways and planning department went sick with a prolonged wrist injury, the council bought a Maltron keyboard to try and rectify the problem. Although the injury was never clearly diagnosed as RSI, the operator's managers decided some remedial action was required. Someone had recommended the Maltron keyboard to the council and it decided to try one. A year on, the word-processing pool has seven Maltron keyboards and the operator no longer needs time off..."

Computer Weekly, 8.11.90

"Molly Mockford of East Sussex County Council's Social Services department developed RSI (tenosynovitis) a year ago, when the pain worsened her health advisors suggested she tried 'the keyboard shaped to fit hands'. "Now I hardly ever get pain" says Mockford. "As a programmer I use different keys more often...Maltron customised my keyboard."

Cost Savings

Maltron saves taxpayers over £95m or The Real Cost of RSI and other Disabling Injuries.

It costs all of us taxpayers around £160,000 when someone in the prime of life is struck down with a disability, stops work and has to be cared for by the state for, say, twenty years. But this money is saved when the individual concerned gets back to work. Indeed one organisation, Ability Net, got thirty disabled people back to work in 1998 at a cost of no more than £7,000 and in doing so saved taxpayers a cool £5m. Not forgetting the social benefits of having thirty self confident people back as net contributors to society instead of feeling a burden to the state!

Extrapolating these figures with respect to the Maltron ergonomically designed keyboard over the last twenty years, Stephen Hobday thinks that he has saved the taxpayers over £95m as he has got over 2000 people suffering from RSI back to work after typical diagnoses such as "You'll never work again".

The TUC has recently published a report that says employers are ignoring the massive costs to their businesses of RSI and back strain at work. With over a third of a million sufferers taking ten million days off work a year Government statistics show that musculo-skeletal disorders, viz RSI and back strain, are the second most common work-related disease in Great Britain. The cost is estimated as £2b per year. The TUC goes on to say that employers are "not recording the number of sufferers or the amount of days lost to these problems, nor are they providing treatment for those suffering. One way forward, suggests the TUC, is for the Insurance companies to "encourage" employers to increase rehabilitation and treatment offered to back strain and RSI sufferers.

A recent development in this area is the rehabilitation scheme run by Sketchley Hall in the Midlands which now has Government backing. The Keyboard-RSI recovery programme actually includes an introduction to the Maltron ergonomically designed keyboard. Doctor Foster at Sketchley Hall is available for discussion re individual RSI or back-pain cases on a no-fee basis and can be contacted on 01332 872430 or Sketchley Hall on 01455 890023.

Statistics suggest that around 30% of the £2b per year is down to RSI but there is no breakdown for keyboard-related cases . If this is as low as 5% , getting somebody back to work with a Maltron ergonomically designed keyboard must be worth some £30m per year and consequently a staggering £600m over twenty years to the tax payer! "

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