Affiliations: [a] Department of Industrial Engineering, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines. | [b] School of Industrial Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA.
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author: Gavriel Salvendy, School of Industrial Engineering, Purdue University, 1287 Grissom Hall, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA.
Abstract: A total of 100 female VDT operators, who performed a variety of office functions, were studied at a major midwestern university. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of job exposure, posture, psychosocial and personal factors on carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) comparing between CTS and non-CTS subjects. The results of the study suggest that the main causation of CTS are long periods of continuous typing activity, static and bent postures of the wrist, seating posture and the individual's wrist size. It was found that CTS subjects spent longer time and a greater proportion of their work involving keyboarding than the non-CTS subjects. CTS subjects tended to assume more extended and deviated wrist postures as well as forward leaning seating postures than the non-CTS subjects. Furthermore, non-CTS subjects were found to have wider wrists than the CTS subjects.
