Lys Esther Rocha
.At
Repetitive strain injuries in
key-board operators
T he w ork of K ey-board operators w as initially
associ-ated to R epetitive Strain Injuries (R SI) in Japan around 1960, w hen these w orkers com plained of pain in the
neck-shoulder-arm -hand are called O ccupational C ervicobrachial D isorders
by the com m itte of the Japan A ssociations ofIndustrial H ealth.
In A ustralia, an increase of R SI in keyboard operators w as
registered around 1970. In B razil, cases of tenosynovitis, a
clinical type of R SI, related to key-board's w ork since 1982,
have been registered.
In 1986, the L abour U nion of the D ata Processing C om -panies for the State of Sao Paulo requested from the L abour
M inistry of Sao Paulo the developm ent of an Inspection
Pro-gram for these com panies. In the planning of how these
in-spections w ould be run, it w as decided to use the C A T (W ork
A ccidents C om unication) of tenosynovitis registered at
So-cial W elfare.
A s the N ational Institute of M edical A ssistance and
Social W elfare established in N ovem ber 1986 tenosynovitis
as an occupational disease, the period select for the C A T s
analysis w as from N ovem ber 1986 to D ecem ber 1987. T his
study analysed 284 C A T s registered in the city of Sao Paulo. T he nam e R SI w as not used by the Social W elfare D
epart-m ent in 1987.
T he inform ation analysed regarded the business, the
w orker (age, sex, m arital status, occupation, w ages) and the
accident characterization (m edical service and diagnosis). T he
data w as processed by the C om puter Service of Preventive
M edicine, D epartm ent of the Sao Paulo U niversity M edical
School.
Sum m arizing, the inform ation on the w orkers gathered
w as: 79,9% w ere w om en; the m ajority (60,8% ) w ere 25 to 34
years of age; 43,9% w ere unm arried and 48,9% w ere m
ar-ried; 71,9% received betw een 4 to 6 m inim un salaries.
W e com pared the inform ation collected through the
C A T s w ith the 1989 A nnual Social Inform ation R eport (R A IS) of the L abour M inistry. In that year, there w ere 12.272 key-board operators w orking. In relation to sex, w e observed that
52,7% w ere w om en. It seem s to be that the diseasis m ore
com m on in w om en. In relation to the age, according to R A IS's
data 35,7% of the keyboard operators w ere betw een 18 to 24
years of age and those w ith tenosynovitis represented only
13,5% suggesting that the m ore serious cases of the disease
occured 5 years after w orking in this occupation.
T he occupation collected through the C A T s in 91,8%
w ere of keyboard operators. T his inform ation differs from
international literature, that report m ore R SI in assem bly-line
operators. T he explanation of this fact is the m obilization of
data processing w orkers in B razil to recognize R SI as an
oc-cupational disease.
T he keyboard operation can be associated w ith R SI
because of the follow ing factors: high speed finger w ork
to-taling 12.000 strokes per hour' associated w ith production
prizes; continuous w orking periods w ith a break tim e after
three hours; frequent over-tim e; poor ergonom ic design of
the furniture and m achines causing m uscular strain; increase
of stress because of electronic m onitoring of production;
en-vironm ents w ith low tem perature and inadequate lighting; use of force to stroke and 12 hour w ork periods.
T he recognition of tenosynovitis as an occupational
dis-ease w as m ainly done by W ork A ccident E xperts of the
So-cial W elfare D epartm ent that w ere distributed in 5 areas of
the city. M ost patients w ere attended at the C entral A gency
(70,6% ) because of its localization. M edical Services of the
C om panies w ere responsible for attending 11,8% .
T he m ain diagnosis w as for the right arm (90,1% );
59,4% for the upper m em bers; tenosynovitis of the w rist
occured in 21,8% of the cases. This observation consolidates that the best nam e is R SI w hich explains the generalized at-tack of the superior m em bers.
In the relation to the duration of leaves, only 6,7% tookless than 15 days off. The m ajori ty took off m ore than 90 days, m aking it evident that only the m ore serious cases had been registered.
The keyboard operators w ith tenosynovitis in general directed them selves to orthopedists of m edical health plans (com m on in data processing business) w ho recom m ended they stay aw ay from w ork from 7 to 10 days. A fter the treatm ent,
the keyboard operators returned to w ork w ithout alterations in the production. These episodes m any tim es w ent unkow n by to M edical Services of the C om panies because the m edi-cal certificates w ere filed in the Personnel D epartm ent. In these cases, they did not file C A Ts because the business is responsible for the paym ent of the first 15 days aw ay from the job.
The C A Ts data and the inspection at the com panies con-tributed to changing the Ergonom ic G uidelines of the Labour M inistry, establishing prevention m easures for the disease through the Portaria 3751 of N ovem ber 23,1990.
