Dr J. Clarke Stevens et al., Mayo Clinic, Scottsdale, Arizona, U. S. A.
Until the mid-90's carpal tunnel syndrome was not taken seriously by the media. Although carpal tunnel syndrome and other sorts of CTD account for 34% of workplace injuries in America, and cost industry around $20 billion per year, it used to affect mainly manual labourers such as chicken slaughterers, road menders and similar.

Then office workers began to be diagnosed with the disease and the belief spread that people who use a keyboard are at particular risk. This belief was supported by the fact that in 1999, 23% of the reported cases were linked to typing.

However, a study published in Neurology in June 2001 by J. Clarke Stevens et al. of the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona concludes that carpal tunnel syndrome is as common amongst keyboard users as in the general population.

Dr Stevens group sent questionnaire to the employees of the Mayo Clinic who use computers. Of those who replied, 30% complained of some sort of CTD-like symptom,, 10% met the initial criteria for a diagnosis of carpal tunnel syndrome and 3.5% had the diagnosis confirmed by further study that showed that the nerve was malfunctioning. These values are similar to values found in earlier studies carried out in the Netherlands and Sweden.

The findings of the Mayo study seem to indicate that carpal tunnel syndrome is not one of the ailments caused by typing.

(Abstracted from The Economist, December 2001)