Repetitive strain injury (RSI)
| For more information on Work related upper limb disorders click here for the relevant chapter of the TUC guide to health and safety "Hazards at Work |
Repetitive strain injuries affect hundreds of thousands of workers every year in Britain.
RSI covers a wide range of injuries to muscles, tendons and nerves. Usually hands, wrists, elbows or shoulders are affected. Knees and feet can also suffer, especially if a job involves a lot of kneeling or operating foot pedals on equipment.
The more common workplace strain injuries are sometimes called Work Related Upper Limb Disorders or WRULDS. This can lead to permanent disabilities, so must be stopped at an early stage.
There are many different names for these conditions, including: Tenosynovitis;
carpall tunnel syndrome; tendinitis; dupuytren’s contracture; epicondylitis
or ‘tennis or golf elbow’; Bursitis; ‘Housemaid’s knee’
or ‘beat conditions’, and overuse injury.
To prevent strains, however, requires an acknowledgement that workers are not
there to provide the flexibility in the system, through contorting and stressing
their bodies and brains to cope with poorly designed equipment or systems of
work, or through increasing their work rate to accommodate production demands,
or because the workforce is too stretched, too cowed or too insecure to complain.
Links
TUC guide: Identifying potential RSI risks in the workplace
UNISON; Information sheet on RSI
Worksmart RSI FAQs and resources
International RSI Day 28 February each year
The most recent documents available on this subject are:
Call to protect workers from RSI
More needs to be done to protect workers from repetitive strain injury, physios' union CSP has warned.
PDF version available for download
29 February 2008
Tube driver gets RSI compo go-ahead
A Tube driver has been granted permission to sue London Underground (LUL) after developing a debilitating wrist injury.
PDF version available for download
15 February 2008
Kids and workers need keyboard skills
The TUC is calling on the government to help stop the epidemic of workplace repetitive strain injury (RSI) by introducing typing and keyboard skills into schools.
PDF version available for download
2 March 2007
Most strain injuries made on the shopfloor
Factory workers rather than managers are most at risk from repetitive strain injury (RSI), the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP) has warned.
PDF version available for download
2 March 2007
Children should learn typing at school to help stop RSI epidemic, says TUC
To mark RSI Awareness Day today (Wednesday), the TUC is calling on the Government to help stop the epidemic of the condition that affects tens of thousands of workers across the UK by introducing typing and keyboard skills into schools.
28 February 2007
Editor wins £37,500 RSI damages
A Guardian newspaper night editor who says she was refused access to the company physiotherapist after developing crippling elbow pain has been paid £37,500 in damages for RSI.
PDF version available for download
26 May 2006
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