How is Occupational Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Caused?
A. Many of today’s occupations have developed to the point where job specialization requires the same hand motions be repeated endlessly throughout the workday. Dentists cashiers, clerks, assembly line workers, secretaries computer operators, meat processors,, musicians, and scores of others spend hours each day overusing the same muscles and tendons as if they were indestructible. A sixty words-per-minute typist depresses the keys 18,000 times in one hour. Each and every press of the finger requires about eight ounces of pressure effort. In just one day those fingers have pressed the equivalent of 54,000 pounds. That’s twenty-seven tons pushed by the fingers’ muscles and tendons! This strain of repeated movement and pressure overworks muscles in the hands, fingers, and arms and causes the nine tendons in the narrow carpal tunnel to become irritated, inflamed, and swollen. CTS is a nerve damage problem that occurs when the nerve becomes entrapped. However, as it pertains to repetitive
