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Roger Bissom
blossoms after switching to a fully-ergonomic Maltron keyboard to
relieve years of misery caused by RSI
Roger Bissom of St
Helier in Jersey has been using a computer for some 20 years now,
despite his relatively young age of 28 His first obvious signs of
Repetitive Strain Injury started showing up in November 1998
– just a couple of months after he started a new contract as
a software engineer. Not that he took a great deal of notice at
the time; working under pressure, and without the full awareness
of the crippling ability of RSI. He tended to dismiss early aches
and pains and ignore many of the tell-tale signs such as the
apparent weakness of his forearms when taking part in sports.
Over the Christmas
break in 1998 the aches and pains persisted and when he returned
to work after the break, the pain had developed from simple aches
in his hands to an agonising burning sensation in his forearms.
After enduring two or
three weeks of this burning sensation in his forearms while
working he went to see his doctor. On his first visit, the doctor
seemed sympathetic and gave him a prescription for some NSAIDs
(non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs). At various times, the
pain developed from forearm burning sensations to wrist pains and
back again. These drugs did seem to help a little, but, after a
number of repeat prescriptions, he asked his doctor whether
physiotherapy might help. At this point, rather than continue
taking the NSAIDs, he undertook regular physiotherapy sessions
– roughly thirteen of them at a cost of around £30.00 each.
The end of this
physiotherapy treatment roughly coincided with the completion of
his contract in late 1999. After this he essentially took the
rest of the year off to give the RSI problem an opportunity to
improve, as he could not realistically continue working in IT as
a software engineer given the amount of pain this caused.
In early 2000, he
undertook a new piece of work, having given himself some time to
recover by using a computer much less and regular exercise of his
shoulder muscles through swimming. However, within a couple of
days of starting to work again he found that the pain was, again,
becoming unbearable. At this point he tried out acupuncture and
kinesiology (RSI sufferers will try anything to get better).
Although both had some effect and acupuncture was quite
relieving, neither treatment represented anything other than a
temporary improvement for as soon as he started work, within less
than an hour, the pain was back in full force.
He says that he knew
about the Maltron keyboard from roughly 20 years ago (he was
probably about 8 or 10 at the time) when it was featured in a
book which described the Maltron as “a futuristic
keyboard”, featuring a new key layout that was designed to
increase typing speed using the Maltron letter layout (as opposed
to QWERTY which was designed specifically to slow typists down).
The other thing that made it stand out was the price –
£375.00 – for a piece of hardware, which, functionally, did
the same thing as a £5-£50 flat keyboard. At the time, he had
no idea whether this keyboard, albeit ergonomically designed,
would have any impact on his, now chronic, RSI problem but in the
absence of other ideas, he decided to buy one to see if it made
any difference.When he received the keyboard however, he started
to use it at home; He was concerned that taking an unfamiliar
keyboard to work would raise a few issues both with customers and
colleagues, so for the next six months – until the end of
his contract – he persevered with his normal flat laptop
keyboard at work.
In the first couple of
months working with the Maltron he found that he could type
proficiently using the keyboard within about six weeks. This is
bearing in mind that he could not touch type properly beforehand!
Normal typing was relatively quick to “learn” whereas
he found that software coding was harder to learn due to the
mixture of upper and lowercase letters, braces and “greater
than” signs.
Throughout the early
period when he started to use the Maltron keyboard, his symptoms
tended to improve for a period then got worse, then improve, then
got worse and so on. However, after roughly three months, he
found he could type more quickly and accurately using the Maltron
keyboard than he ever could using a normal, flat keyboard and
with much less pain.
It is now two years
since he started to use a Maltron keyboard properly on a daily
basis, and Bissom finds that although his RSI symptoms have not
gone, they are at least at a level that is acceptable for
every-day work. He gets the odd bad day, but this is usually when
he has been doing a great deal of typing work, or whenever he has
used a flat keyboard for any length of time. In conclusion,
Bissom finds that his Maltron keyboard represents the difference
between “my working and not working”.
He says “At a cost
of less than £0.50 per day (after 2 years), my Maltron keyboard
has represented one of the best investments I have ever made in
trying to alleviate my RSI problems to date and, given that the
keyboard is still in perfect condition, I expect this cost to
come down further over time”. Going beyond recommending the
keyboard to only RSI sufferers, Bissom continues “Anybody
who uses, or employs staff that uses a keyboard for any length of
time – particularly touch typing – would do well to try
a Maltron keyboard; after an initial learning curve, you will
probably see a significant increase in typing efficiency and
accuracy”.
The MALTRON keyboard has just been
given a Four-Star award by the prestigious PC
Magazine based in New York.
See the Maltron website
for illustrations and details of all models in the Maltron range
For more details and
pictures via Email contact Stan Allen
at Heath Technical Services
Tel/Fax 0208 653 4648
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