The present-day office working condition requires us to work for long on a computer mouse which can result in repetitive stress injury to our wrist joint. With time it may develop into carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS), a painful wrist condition. A Chinese study reveals that 10% clinically confirmed CTS wrist pain sufferer are office workers1. The study finds a link between intense use of a computer, working without breaks and increased prevalence of wrist pain. Actually, Carpal tunnel syndrome is a condition that causes pain in the wrist with a tingling sensation and numbness on the finger frequently seen in the morning.
To some extent, we can prevent this pain by following the ergonomic way of sitting at a desk. However this is not sufficient, a proper setup that prevents minimises the stress on our wrist is the need of the hour to prevent this kind of pain. In this article, I am going to reveal a wonderful product that can help to ease the stress on your wrist joint and you can improve your productivity by using this simple device while working on the mouse.
Vrist, wrist rest for mouse pad
The purpose of developing this product was to reduce pressure on the wrist joint when working on a mouse. Normally when we hold the mouse and move it our wrist is not supported and to hold this position the muscle of the wrist, arm, forearm and shoulder muscle work continuously. Also, while moving mouse from left to right and vice versa the wrist joint acts as a pivot around which this motion takes place.
This causes repetitive stress on the wrist joint and can lead to neck pain, shoulder and upper back pain. Being physical therapists we advise taking 5 min break every 30 minutes and performing a quick neck exercise to prevent such neck and shoulder pain. We can drastically reduce this by supporting the wrist when using the mouse. This is the issue that this new product can solve. This device is ergonomically designed and the brand name of the device is VRIST wrist support.
So this product VRIST is basically a support for wrist specifically designed for mouse users. As you can see in the image it is designed such that you can place your wrist over it, with a neat groove that can fit the lower end of the mouse. You can also see a tunnel running longitudinally, it is intended to give relief to the carpal tunnel of our wrist.
A Carpal tunnel is an anatomical tunnel-like structure at the wrist through which the vital structure such as nerve and blood vessels passes. In Carpal tunnel syndrome the circumference of the tunnel reduces leading to compression of these structures giving rise to pain, tingling sensation and even numbness in the palm and fingers.
How to use
The whole unit is designed such that it can give good support to the wrist while having a firm hold on the mouse. If you notice, the whole unit is divided into left and right halves, they are actually interconnected by a separator inside. This is to adjust the width of the unit according to the size of the wrist. Suppose, for a person with a wider wrist and arm the width of this unit can be increased giving the flexibility of using it according to the size of the wrist joint.
Increasing the width is very easy, that can be done by pressing a button at the bottom. Just press the button to release it and pull apart the left and right side unit to increase the width to the desired size and then release it to lock the position. Accordingly can increase or decrease on the basis of the size of the wrist.
Once you have adjusted the width, place the mouse on the groove and hold it. Here, one might question how one can move the mouse to left, right or up and down. You don’t need to worry about this as there are four rollers at the bottom of the unit that helps it slide in any direction. So once you support your wrist and hold the mouse using the VRIST, it gives a frictionless experience of moving the mouse and at the same time, it is giving good support to your Wrist.
What if you have wrist pain?
Now we know how important it is to give support to your wrist and prevent stress injury at your wrist joint. However, if you have developed wrist pain due to carpal tunnel syndrome you can perform these carpal tunnel exercises to get relief. These are very simple yet very effective exercises to cure carpal tunnel wrist pain.
Keep Reading: 5 Easy Carpal Tunnel Exercises for Wrist Pain Relief
