There are aches that do not go away easily. Most often, people affected by a crick in the neck, a bad back or painful wrists, do not recognize these as symptoms of repetitive stress injury (RSI), the causative factors for which are embedded in a person’s profession or vocation.
Medical practitioners are now finding that those affected by RSI come from diverse backgrounds that include computer professionals, musicians, sportsmen, journalists and even dentists and surgeons.
What is RSI?
“When there is physical stress of a similar kind and repeatedly at the same area, it leads to RSI,” says V.B. Bhasin, honorary senior consultant at the department of orthopaedics, Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi. Dr Bhasin says cases of such disorders are largely unreported in India. Typically, RSI manifests itself in a pattern based on the patient’s profession. “A golfer could have RSI in the shoulder region. Other sportspersons could have foot related RSI, while IT (information technology) professionals and call centre employees typically suffer from a consistent pain in the neck, back or wrist,” says Dr Bhasin.
Who are most affected?
Computer-dependent professions exhibit the highest incidence of RSI. In an ongoing study on musculoskeletal disorders among computer professionals in India being conducted by RECOUP—Neuro Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation Centre based in Bangalore, more than three-fourths of the 35,000 persons surveyed showed symptoms of RSI. The areas affected most commonly include the neck, upper back, lower back and the upper extremity, says Deepak Sharan, medical director, RECOUP. A fifth of such patients also suffers from constant pain and numbness.
Also, unlike in the West, where RSI is usually an illness affecting middle-aged women with chronic health disorders, people affected here are mostly healthy men (with an average age of 27). Therefore, patients tend to be lulled into believing their symptoms are not serious. This has made RSI a progressive disorder that most Indians first hear of only after being severely afflicted by it, sometimes several months after losing their jobs because of it. The RECOUP study has identified 80 young people who are unable to independently bathe, dress, drive, open doors or even hold a cup of tea, due to Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, a condition that is the result of inadequately managed RSI. RECOUP started out on the systematic study of RSI in 2001 after the centre had an influx of six-year-olds who were all referred to it for bad handwriting. “We realized all of them had a similar problem of being unable to grip a pencil,” says Dr Sharan.