This article was
written by ErgoRisk

Hand and Wrist - Tool Use

• Human hands are unique and one of our greatest assets. Can you imagine trying to work without them?

• Do you suffer from any of the following symptoms?
• Numbness, tingling, redness, stiffness or reduced movement, pain, reduced strength

• These can be the first steps down the road to serious injury or disability 

 
• The combination of forceful and awkward wrist movements repeated throughout your workday can lead to many types of injuries. 

• Carpal tunnel syndrome, tennis elbow, golfer’s elbow, and tendonitis are just a few of the problems that can impact your ability to use your hands over the long term.
What do you need to know?

• The safest and strongest position for your wrist and hands is when your wrists is straight and you can use a comfortable power grip (the handshake position)
• Some of the risk factors for your hand include powerful gripping, bent wrist postures, vibration from tools, cold, gloves, and poorly designed tool handles. When more than one risk factor is present, the risk is multiplied.
What can you do to prevent hand injuries?
• Make sure that your tools are in good working order. Dull or poorly maintained tools take longer to get the job done, require more force, cause unnecessary vibration and increase the risk of injury from tool ‘kick back’.
• Change the height that you work at to maximize your leverage and optimize your wrist posture and grip strength
• WATCH OUT for the tendency to over-squeeze power tools.
• If you can’t change your work, workstation or tools and have to work in awkward posture, make sure you take breaks to stretch and to let your muscles and tendons recover.

This article was
written by ErgoRisk

Hand and Wrist - Hold on Tight (but not too tight)

What factors increase the risk of hand strain or injury?

• Muscles work best when the joints that they cross are in ‘neutral’ position. Neutral wrist posture is a straight line from your forearm to your hand.

• Why is this important? Working with the wrist bent increases stress on the tendons as they go through the wrist and can increase pressure in the carpal tunnel.

 If these tendons have to bend around a corner (if your wrist is bent) or are pressed against a hard edge they can get inflamed (think of a rock climbing rope rubbing back and forth over a rock and getting hot and frayed). Over time the combination of awkward wrist posture and repetitive movements can lead to injuries anywhere from the elbow to the hand.
• Another factor in wrist problems is that the wrist muscles aren’t as strong when they are bent.
 For example, working with your wrist bent impacts how strong your grip is. If your wrist is fully bent (palm toward forearm), your grip strength can be reduced by over 50% (this is actually a knife disarming technique in certain martial arts).
 Because the muscles are less efficient, awkward postures make you squeeze harder, and since you are squeezing harder, the muscles don’t have as much endurance and fatigue faster. Awkward wrist posture leads to you having to work harder!

• This can be reduced even more if you are wearing gloves. Did you know that using gloves can decrease your grip strength by up to 40%?
• All of these factors are reasons to take a close look at your work and work area. Do your wrists and hands give it a thumbs up or thumbs down?

This article was
written by ErgoRisk

Hand and Wrist - The right grip

What can I do around my workplace?

• Since repeated awkward wrist postures can lead to injury, many designers have modified tools to help keep the wrist in neutral. Remember, it’s always better to bend the tool than to work with your wrist in an awkward posture.

The solutions:

The first step is recognizing that your work forces you to work with awkward wrist postures.
The second step is to try to figure out what is causing your wrist to be bent:
• Is it the height or orientation of your workstation?
o Can you raise or lower your workstation to improve your wrist posture?
o Can you use a vice, jig, or a stand to hold work and reduce hand strain?
• Is it the tool design?
o Use pistol grip tools for vertical surfaces, inline tools for horizontal surfaces.
o Look for alternative tools that promote neutral wrist posture and to reduce stress on the wrist and hand.
• Is it the design of the machine/equipment that you are working on?
o If you can’t change this, modify HOW you work and manage fatigue.
o Learn appropriate stretching and strengthening exercises to help keep your wrists and hands healthy.