"Medical Genetics" - Mathematically, the Hardy-Weinberg law is written as a formula: Elementary evolutionary processes that affect the formation and dynamics of the genetic structure of populations. Outbreeding and inbreeding. Populations, definition, types. Topic: Fundamentals of population genetics. Predisposing combination of alleles in the genotype.
"Medical psychologist" - Clinicians believe that the release or increase of anxiety in the course of psychotherapy will undermine the positive effect of drug treatment. Identification of the cause and role of the psychogenic factor in the patient's condition. Implementation of feedback: oral discussion or writing a conclusion on emerging requests Information confidentiality.
"Medical physics" - Medical physics is ... Fundamental frequency. Medical physics is a specialty of the XXI century! Sonoelastography. G.F.B. Riemann (1826 - 1866). Surgical and medicinal medicine becomes physical medicine! Doppler mapping of blood flow. Sonoelastographic reconstruction. Ultrasound diagnostics.
"Medical College" - Preparatory courses. Specialty 060109 Nursing Nurse - sister of "mercy", the first assistant to the doctor. Exams: Unified State Examination in Chemistry and Russian Language Study period: 2 years 10 months. Nursing is a qualification of a nurse. COLLEGE Student Life. "The best in the profession."
"First aid for injuries" - Cessation of breathing Cardiac arrest. Limbs are more often exposed to frostbite, especially the lower ones. Venous bleeding. The blood flows out slowly. First aid for injuries. When blowing small portions of air, artificial respiration will not be effective. Reduction is a medical procedure, so the victim must be taken to the doctor as soon as possible.
"Diseases of medical workers" - Doctors experience high neuro-emotional stress. One of the reliable methods for the specific diagnosis of PBA is a provocative inhalation test with minimal concentrations of aqueous solutions of allergens. High sounds generated during the operation of dental equipment lead to adverse changes not only in the hearing organ, but also in the nervous system.
“The arms just fall off!” complains the manager who spent the day at the computer. While scientists decide whether to classify "carpal tunnel syndrome" as an occupational disease of computer scientists, ordinary users are buying up ergonomic mouse pads and sounding the alarm in medical blogs. The former editor-in-chief of the medical Internet site MedNovosti, Alexei Vodovozov, became left-handed a year ago: he had problems with his wrist and had to give his right hand to the doctors “to be torn to pieces”. “There was no surgery, but the course of treatment lasted as much as three months, including physiotherapy and exercise therapy,” recalls Alexey. - At first I worked at the computer with one left hand, then I came up with the idea of fixing a sore joint with a bowling glove - there is a steel plate just above the wrist. Now the worst is over, but the hands still sometimes “naughty” when you exceed a certain load limit.
Ten years ago, professional musicians and experienced drivers complained about problems with their wrists. Today they are joined by programmers, web designers, system administrators, gamers and managers who spend most of their time at the computer.
The wrist is pressed to the table, the mouse is in the palm, the fingers make monotonous movements barely noticeable to the eye for hours - right button, left button, scroll ... Familiar? This is a direct path to carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). He is also carpal tunnel syndrome, which the people have already dubbed "mouse bite".
Carpal tunnel syndrome is better prevented than treated. Because the case can end with an operation. Meanwhile, there are elementary methods of prevention.
simple movements
Recognizing a "mouse bite" is easy. If, for no reason at all, the right arm starts to hurt in the place where the pulse is usually felt. If three fingers go numb in the morning and do not obey well: middle, thumb and forefinger. If your wrist swells, don't go to the fortuneteller - it's him!
At first, the discomfort is mild, so a person can write it off for a long time as a banal bruise or sprain. Sensing that something is wrong with the right hand, the manager thinks: “Probably damaged a ligament last weekend while playing golf for the championship of the company.” But the pain does not subside, but only intensifies. So, it's not the golf club that's to blame, but the mouse for the computer.
To understand what happens to the sick hand of an office worker, let's imagine that we looked inside his wrist. Here we have a gutter, bounded on three sides by bones, and on the fourth side by a wide transverse ligament. She, like an elastic cuff, covers the carpal tunnel from the side of the flexor surface. Inside this tunnel are the median nerve and tendons of the muscles of the hand.
In mouse bite patients, the ligament-cuff is thickened, and consequently, the carpal tunnel is narrowed and the nerve passing through it is compressed. Hence the numbness of the fingers. In conditions of total tightness, tendons also suffer, which by their nature are an order of magnitude more mobile than a nerve. They rub against each other, become inflamed and hurt. Such is the sad result of the computer load on the hands.
And respected managers and web designers have no one to blame but themselves and their work. Western doctors, so that patients do not doubt the cause of their ailment, even came up with a "talking" term - RSI (repetitive strain injury) - "chronic injury from repetitive stress." Emil Pasquarelli himself, a well-known RSI specialist from Columbia University (USA), is sure that this syndrome can be considered an industrial injury.
Although not everything is so sad. After all, not everyone who sits at a computer for days begins to hurt their hands. A healthy body is not afraid of any mouse. And all you need is nothing: normal metabolism and hormonal levels, ideal joints and the absence of a genetic predisposition to damage them. The rest of the advanced users who are at risk should take care and, just in case, check from time to time: how are things with their wrists?
Usually, a neurologist deals with the diagnosis of carpal tunnel syndrome, but if desired, it can be done independently. It is enough to squeeze your palms into a fist with all your might or put them together the way goodies do in Indian films. If after two minutes the fingers do not begin to go numb, then there is no threat to the wrists. To be on the safe side, check your blood pressure. The numbers here do not play any role, the main thing is that at the same time goosebumps do not run across the palm of the squeezed hand.
If you are still numb and run, and even if you have a whole bunch of symptoms, you can’t hesitate. Urgently to the doctor. And not to a neurologist, who is recommended on medical forums by the same amateurs, but to a specialist in hand surgery. Don't worry, no one will cut you right away. First, the doctor will assess the damage to the hand, and then offer the most optimal treatment tactics. Keep in mind that after surgery, relief occurs after a few days, and with medications - after a few months.
Deal?
Before the advent of the first typewriter, a patient with carpal tunnel syndrome was considered exotic in medical practice, something like a bearded woman. But for a long time to hit the keys with impunity did not work. Just a few years later, doctors started talking about CZK as ... about "typist's syndrome."
If we compare how many professional typists were then and how many computer users are now, it is clear why doctors are sounding the alarm. After all, only in the last ten years the number of patients with "mouse bite" has increased by an order of magnitude. For example, in France in 1996, surgeons performed one or two operations per week on the carpal joint, and in 2006 - more than twenty. Does anyone seriously believe that the statistics jumped at the expense of milkmaids or musicians?
I would not like to exaggerate, but, according to Western experts, the situation will worsen further. And in our opinion, the “epidemic” of RSI that has swept over computerized America and the EU countries has already spread to Russia.
As they say, there are two news - good and bad. Let's start with the good one. We won't have to reinvent the wheel based on the experience of our foreign colleagues: back in 1999, a respected domestic publication devoted to computers outlined a way out of the crisis. Namely, prevention and more prevention. Ergonomically designed workplace, reduction of hours spent at the computer, and timely appeal for help. By the way, everything together will come out much cheaper than the treatment of an already formed SZK.
Well, now the bad news. Most Russian careerists are workaholics, and most of them are afraid of doctors. Such people will sit at the computer until victory and endure until victory. In addition, even in large IT companies we do not have a full-time position of an ergonomics specialist. Its functions are, at best, more or less distributed between the head of the administrative and economic department, whose duties include the purchase of computer equipment, and the personnel manager. And, despite the fact that the equipment is purchased the latest (in terms of performance), employees do without keyboards, mice and mouse pads that reduce the strain on the wrist. Needless to say, how are things in smaller and far from computer technology companies? What else ergonomics? They replaced the cathode-ray monitor with a liquid crystal monitor - and all right!
Light at the end of the tunnel
The salvation of the drowning is the work of the drowning themselves. If the management does not consider it necessary to take care of the wrists of subordinates, then they will have to do it themselves. Fortunately, computer manufacturers are not lazy - every year they bring to the market more and more reliable means of protection against SKZ.
So, a gentleman's set of an experienced computer scientist:
mouse pad with gel pad to relieve pressure on the wrist;
"correct" computer mouse: firstly, without a "tail", secondly, allowing the hand to maintain its physiological position;
an ergonomic keyboard, for example, broken in half - each hand has its own half, or “humped”, in which the right and left parts converge at an angle and wrist rests are provided.
All of the above today is almost a classic, but there are also frills. American hand surgeon Mark Eberbach has developed special gloves for working at a computer. They are without fingers, but with two soft pads on the wrists, anatomically located on both sides of the median nerve. To not be crushed. Another US invention is the springy keyboard. Presumably this should reduce the strain on the wrists when typing.
And finally, the last mouse squeak:
a mouse standing in a column;
mouse lying on its side;
a mouse, arched in a z-shaped way - if you take it in your hand, it feels like you are holding a gun.
Against this background, the novelty from the studio in the form of an arrow looks, to put it mildly, faded. In addition, it does not differ in special ergonomics.
The cost of any of the ingenious mice is about one and a half thousand rubles.
Let's say the advance is still far away. It doesn't matter - you can use an absolutely free way to prevent "chronic injury from repetitive stress" - erg aerobics. The name is beautiful, but in fact - exercises for the hands, but not simple, but developed by members of the American Physical Therapy Association. Slowly squeeze the brushes into fists, slowly unclench. Press your palms on the inside surface of the table top. Bend back your fingers. Each time the tension is held for ten seconds, each exercise is performed ten times in one go. The number of visits - no matter how lazy.
Not so long ago, another fairly large category of citizens joined the already known victims of RSI - owners of cell phones who type SMS messages too often. But their problems, perhaps, we will leave on the conscience of mobile operators.
Natalia KLIM
// Internet magazine Point.Ru
The reason for writing this article was a request from our corporate recruiter that I tell you how to recognize a good system administrator without resorting to a professional interview.
But is it possible? I was a little surprised at the recruiter's request, but I tried to help him, and, as it turned out, not in vain. Those character traits and personal qualities that need to be revealed at an informal interview should be tried to be found in yourself in order to understand whether you have "indications for work" as a system administrator or it is better to try professional success in another field. What are these qualities?
- Perseverance and perseverance
- Quick Troubleshooting
- No allergy to night vigils, morning awakenings
- multi-station
- Good memory
- Good stress tolerance
- Logics
- Let's take a closer look at each of these personal qualities.
Perseverance and perseverance
Despite the fact that compiling a list of personal qualities necessary for working as a system administrator is a rather complicated and thankless task, I would still put perseverance, fanatical perseverance in solving the tasks, which borders on meticulousness and stubbornness, as the first point.
It's no secret that there are many temptations in the work of a system administrator: "surf the Internet", "sit in Odnoklassniki", or even just play a "walker" or a "shooter".
Instead, it is often necessary to muster the will into a fist to set up, for example, the Nagios monitoring system, which, although it has many "templates" to help with configuration, still has to do the lion's share of the work manually. Or set up and then test, test, test "iRules" rules in BIGIP F5 load managers or read each line in the Cfengine system configuration code.
Of course, programmers have a similar requirement. But the programmer is often assisted by test engineers, and in the case of a hard-to-remove error, it is always relatively safe to “roll back” to the previous version.
But a network or database administrator who makes a mistake in addressing the address space can take the entire company offline.
It happens that you have to tinker with this or that problem all day, which imperceptibly passes into the evening. It often happens that the weekend is completely ruined, because Windows 7 freezes in the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) due to incompatible drivers for the video adapter.
Of course, not everyone will want or be able to sit day and night on different puzzles, often without a solution, not forgetting about the daily "churn" that will always fill the working day.
During the interview, you can ask the applicant to talk about some project, not necessarily related to IT, which would require serious perseverance and perseverance. For example, collecting ship models in “bottles”, participating in regional figure skating competitions or climbing a mountain. This cannot be done on the principle of “why not?” - it requires high concentration, quite a lot of training and perseverance.
The reverse side of the "perseverance" of the system administrator is not just solving some complex technical problem, but also writing sufficiently detailed documentation for other employees.
- Will I be able to do the same on a new server?
- Will I be able to do the same in a month?
- Can my colleague do the same?
Incomplete, outdated, or even missing documentation is a chronic disease of many information departments, often it arises due to constant time pressure, but still, honestly, let's say that it is also due to the insufficient diligence of the system administrators themselves.
I always try to appreciate any completed and maintained documentation. And for a "thinking young man" who is interested in the profession of a system administrator, it does not hurt to ask himself: "Do I have perseverance and can I concentrate to achieve my goal?"
Quick Troubleshooting
During an interview, many system administrators like to ask questions about troubleshooting a particular problem. And sometimes there are “test servers” where you can simulate this or that “accident” and see in real time how the applicant for the position will diagnose, what and how quickly he will find, and also what actions he will take. And this is no accident!
An experienced system administrator is like an experienced doctor, who, by the appearance of the patient alone and by a couple of minor symptoms, can determine a particular disease.
The comparison, of course, is quite relative - from the point of view of anatomy, all people are almost the same, and all firms are different in the way they organize IT. But in the division entrusted to him, the system administrator must understand, as they say, inside and out.
For example, Fig. 1 shows a classic three-level system for servicing web requests to a database - this “picture” does not always exist in the corporate documentation of the IT department (which is certainly bad), but it should always exist “in the head” and before through the eyes of a system administrator. In a fraction of a second, he must compare the existing problematic symptoms with the topology of the system and understand where to look further.
On fig. 2, the left “triangle” shows the amount of information needed to answer the questions: “Do we have a problem? What's the problem? Where exactly is the problem? And the right "triangle" shows the "coverage of the territory" in order to understand what and why does not work.
No allergy to night vigils, morning awakenings
The system administrator often has to deal with irregular work patterns. That is, highly irregular. If other specialties have an irregular schedule that implies a delay after 18.00 or an “invasion” on weekends and holidays, then the work of a system administrator resembles the duty of an ambulance paramedic.
Just as a person can be struck by a heart attack at any time of the day, so a serious malfunction and failure of the entire information system can occur at half past four in the morning on Sunday, and at six in the evening on Friday.
Only if the work of emergency doctors is strictly regulated by the duty schedule and complete interchangeability, then senior system administrators or heads of IT departments often do not have this opportunity, so they have to react to one degree or another, or at least be aware (which is often one and the same ditto) all extracurricular problems.
It is clear that four or five hours of sleep is not enough for everyone, and not everyone can quickly jump out of bed on a phone call at 4.30 am on Sunday and within three minutes fully wake up, remotely connect to the corporate system and start diagnosing the problem.
I was respected and slightly taken aback by those system administrators who were always “online”: no matter what time an accident occurred or a message arrived, they responded promptly. Sometimes he even asked: “Guys, do you ever sleep at all?”
It is clear that the questions: “When do you wake up? How many hours do you sleep? - are completely shameless and unceremonious in nature, they will not be asked in any self-respecting company. But an experienced recruiter will be able to “fish out” such information during an interview - it is important for him to know how much he can count on a system administrator after hours. Therefore, the view from the "hangover" will say everything more eloquently than any resume.
And the job seeker for a difficult administrator's bread needs to think and carefully weigh everything: if a person really needs 9-10 hours of sleep, which doctors consider the absolute norm, then maybe you shouldn't try to work where it is contraindicated for health reasons?
multi-station
Today, when it is impossible to imagine the work of IT professionals without division into specializations (databases, networks, graphic design, etc.), system administrators who are erudite in related IT disciplines are highly valued.
One day, our in-house DBA needed to leave urgently, but (as always) there was a serious problem at the SQL level. Fortunately, our Linux administrator, who has never touched the “combat” MS SQL server for the last year, managed to take the bull by the horns, quickly fixed the replication and restored the necessary indexes.
Although database administration was not a Linux administrator's priority, he always tried to keep abreast of the latest news and trends on this front, and had a couple of different MS SQL servers at home for experiments.
Therefore, in addition to DEEP (and this is the key word) knowledge of your subject area, high erudition, craving for knowledge and the desire to help in related areas are always welcome - setting up a mobile phone, designing a web page, editing a presentation.
On the other hand, there should always be a lack of interest or, worse, hostility towards a particular technology, that is, an answer like: “I only want to work with open systems, I can’t stand Microsoft.” If no Microsoft presence is planned in the company, then maybe such an answer will pass. And if you need some help or work with Microsoft, what to do in this case? The recruiter is implicitly interested in what else are you an expert in?
It is important not to overdo it here. A person who, in addition to his work duties as a system administrator, positions himself as a successful musician or a promising hockey player, will be perceived with caution: what if there are tours or competitions, what to do then? And young system administrators who consciously want to “cut down” their subject area should think carefully.
Good memory
As trite as it may sound, a good and tenacious memory is almost essential for successful work in IT. The system administrator, alas, has to keep in mind a lot of numbers and IP addresses and, if possible, not to confuse them. Moreover, all this should not just be “kept in a safe”, but actively referred to.
Of course, in the age of Google, you can find almost any information online, but experienced IT managers will notice that system administrators who will immediately name the number of available addresses with /28, /11, /17 masks or say which syntax:
awk -F\" ("print $2")
awk -F/" "(print $2)"
correct, and which is not, are much more productive and immune to "blunders".
In dynamic and rapidly growing companies, the system administrator has to participate in numerous meetings, transfer data from systems that are poorly compatible with each other, exchange complex projects with engineers and testers - all this generates a sea of \u200b\u200binformation, and in this sea one must always stay afloat.
Messed up IP addresses, "forgotten" instructions to NOT overload the web server, or skipped steps in building a particular package hurt department productivity. Do not be surprised if during the interview at the interview the candidate receives some information (even fictional) with an IT bias, and after a while he will be “invited to remember” IP addresses, system topology, geography of satellite offices in one form or another - but you never know what a recruiter can think of in order to find out how tenacious the future employee’s memory is and how many details of the conversation he remembered and how many he forgot.
Therefore, those who know by heart "Eugene Onegin", a list of their classmates from first to graduation classes or a multiplication table up to 20, are in a better position.
Good stress tolerance
Saturday. 3 am. Your deep sleep is interrupted by a persistent phone call. Waking up, you pick up the phone to hear the exasperated voice of your boss: “The website is down?” "I'll take a look now," you reply with a yawn, just in time to notice that there are 800 emails in your mobile inbox. Even before you put down the phone, it persistently rings again, and the caller ID shows "CEO".
Your actions? The work of a system administrator at times resembles the work of an air traffic controller - several planes are in the air at once, someone takes off, someone lands, someone runs out of fuel. All this must be managed, and if, God forbid, an emergency - quickly make the only right decision.
Testing for stress resistance will always be implied during an interview in a company that operates in a high-load mode. Therefore, questions about the sequence of actions during "accidents in the system" are quite expected.
It is much worse if they are not asked and the candidate is not tested for the ability to think calmly and clearly. In this case, the firm can take on a person who is good in all respects, but is more suitable for a job in a museum archive, rather than a company that maintains 1000 servers. It will never be superfluous to find out the level of your stress resistance, introversion and ability to work in less than ideal conditions.
Logics
For some reason, it is believed that in order to become a good system administrator, you must have a mathematical mindset and finish something like Moscow State University, Phystekh, Baumanka. Of course, a classical technical education is not forbidden, but, as practice shows, one can be a successful system administrator, having a purely humanitarian profile.
I know of many examples of art school graduates, amateur musicians, or stockbrokers in the past becoming excellent system administrators.
A clear mind, attention to detail, the ability to quickly build and analyze cause-and-effect relationships are important. For example, the famous "trick" questions on Google:
- How much does it cost to clean windows in Seattle?
- How many piano tuners are there in the world?
- What are the chances of getting into an accident while driving from San Francisco to Los Angeles?
- How many liters of gasoline are used daily by cars in the UK? How much is all this gasoline going to cost?
They aim to reveal the following:
- How clearly does a person think logically?
- How well does a person know the theory of probability and inexact mathematics?
- How clearly can a person state the course of his conclusions and convince the interlocutor of the rightness?
Like a good chess player who “sees” the board and not only builds a harmonious and elegant game (we read “information system architecture”), but also understands the dangers of hostile opponent combinations, without waiting for a “zugzwang” situation (zugzwang - German Zugzwang - “forcing to move" - a position in checkers and chess, in which any move by a player leads to a deterioration in his position).
Anything can be an “enemy”: a sudden increase in the load on the system, integration with another system, a virus attack, an “Access Denied” attack, migration to a new version.
In addition to purely technical cause-and-effect relationships (such as what happens if you change the load manager balancing algorithm?), you need to have a very good idea of the logic of processes and human relations. The greatest success is achieved by those leaders who can organize not only "machines" and "servers", but also the processes within the company, as well as the work of employees.
A particular problem can be perceived differently by a system administrator, a sales manager, a customer, and a financial director. The CIO not only works to focus all IT workers on current departmental projects and company tasks, but also builds these projects by priority and in chronological order from the point of view of common sense.
By soberly evaluating your analytical skills (“deductive method”) in relation to IT, the system administrator will be able to understand his professional ceiling.
In this article, I tried to reveal the difference between the "profession" and "calling" of a system administrator, what personal qualities are necessary for his work, and also why IT leaders attach such importance to these qualities. Is it possible to say about someone: he was born to work as a system administrator? Perhaps yes. But there is nothing supernatural in this most interesting profession. The main thing is the will to win!
A system administrator is an employee whose job responsibilities include ensuring the regular operation of the computer equipment park, network and software in the organization. Other names: sysadmin (English sysadmin), often just an admin.
System administrators are employees whose responsibilities include not only monitoring the organization's network security, but also creating the optimal performance of computers and software for users, often linked by common work for a certain result.
Often, the functions of a system administrator are shifted to companies engaged in IT outsourcing. Typically, such companies provide a lower cost of service than the maintenance of a full-time employee, and carry out work on the basis of subscription contracts.
Due to the rapid growth of the Internet and the development of network technologies, it is becoming increasingly difficult for a lone system administrator to confront all problems, so specialized forums and publications have long appeared aimed at expanding the horizons of novice system administrators and helping to solve various problems.
No company whose computer park consists of more than one machine can exist without a system administrator (sysadmin).
A system administrator is an information technology professional who is responsible for the operation and maintenance of the server, hardware, and software installed on an enterprise's computers.
Job Responsibilities
Creation and maintenance of a computer complex and a network;
Monitoring the operation of operating systems and software;
Installation and adjustment of software;
Allocation of system resources;
Coordination and administration of systems;
Maintaining the health of a network or multiple computers;
Control and assistance to network users;
Implementation of remote administration (when direct access to the computer is not possible);
Providing support to the system operator;
Network maintenance;
Network repair and installation;
Installation and repair of equipment.
If any failures in the operation of the operating system are detected, all responsibility falls on the shoulders of this specialist. Naturally, the system administrator must understand the "hardware" and programs in order to competently troubleshoot. He must also take care of the reliable protection of information from viruses and hacker attacks. Now more and more technical universities are opening up the training of these specialists. And this is not surprising, because almost every enterprise has its own computer network, and it definitely needs the control of a network administrator, maybe not even one.
Requirements
The system administrator must have a good knowledge of software and network equipment for small and medium networks.
Understand various computer configurations, operating systems, and networking standards.
Be able to reliably ensure the information security of a computer network.
Know technical English, as most of the documentation is written in it.
Personal qualities
Attentiveness;
Thoroughness, systematic work;
Patience;
perseverance;
Accuracy;
painstaking;
A responsibility.
Education
Higher, incomplete higher, secondary specialized technical education.
Places of work
Enterprises and organizations;
Companies and firms;
Computing centers;
Schools.
SysAdmin Day was invented by Chicago sysadmin Ted Kekatos in 1999. Since 2000, the day of the system administrator began to be celebrated annually and everywhere on the last Friday of July.
While scientists decide whether to classify "carpal tunnel syndrome" as an occupational disease of computer scientists, ordinary users are buying up ergonomic mouse pads and sounding the alarm in medical blogs. The former editor-in-chief of the medical Internet site MedNovosti, Alexei Vodovozov, became left-handed a year ago: he had problems with his wrist and had to give his right hand to the doctors “to be torn to pieces”. “There was no surgery, but the course of treatment lasted as much as three months, including physiotherapy and exercise therapy,” recalls Alexey. - At first I worked at the computer with one left hand, then I came up with the idea of fixing a sore joint with a bowling glove - there is a steel plate just above the wrist. Now the worst is over, but the hands still sometimes “naughty” when you exceed a certain load limit.
Ten years ago, professional musicians and experienced drivers complained about problems with their wrists. Today they are joined by programmers, web designers, system administrators, gamers and managers who spend most of their time at the computer.
The wrist is pressed to the table, the mouse is in the palm, the fingers make monotonous movements barely noticeable to the eye for hours - the right button, the left button, scroll ... Familiar? This is a direct path to carpal tunnel syndrome (SZK). It's also carpal tunnel syndrome., which the people have already dubbed the "mouse bite".
Carpal tunnel syndrome is better prevented than treated. Because the case can end with an operation. Meanwhile, there are elementary
prevention methods.
simple movements
Recognizing a "mouse bite" is easy. If it starts all of a sudden the right arm hurts in the place where the pulse is usually felt. If three fingers go numb in the morning and do not obey well: middle, thumb and forefinger. If your wrist swells, don't go to the fortuneteller - it's him!
At first, the discomfort is mild, so a person can write it off for a long time as a banal bruise or sprain. Sensing that something is wrong with the right hand, the manager thinks: “Probably damaged a ligament last weekend while playing golf for the championship of the company.” But the pain does not subside, but only intensifies. So, it's not the golf club that's to blame, but the mouse for the computer.
To understand what happens to the sick hand of an office worker, let's imagine that we looked inside his wrist. Here we have a gutter, bounded on three sides by bones, and on the fourth side by a wide transverse ligament. She, like an elastic cuff, covers the carpal tunnel from the side of the flexor surface. Inside this tunnel is the median nerve and tendons of the muscles of the hand.
In mouse bite patients, the ligament-cuff is thickened, and consequently, the carpal tunnel is narrowed and the nerve passing through it is compressed. Hence the numbness of the fingers. In conditions of total tightness, tendons also suffer, which by their nature are an order of magnitude more mobile than a nerve. They rub against each other, become inflamed and hurt. Such is the sad result of the computer load on the hands.
And respected managers and web designers have no one to blame but themselves and their work. Western doctors, so that patients do not doubt the cause of their ailment, even came up with a “talking” term - RSI (repetitive strain injury) - "chronic injury from repetitive stress". Emil Pasquarelli himself, a well-known RSI specialist from Columbia University (USA), is sure that this syndrome can be considered an industrial injury.
Although not everything is so sad.
After all, not everyone who sits at a computer for days begins to hurt their hands. A healthy body is not afraid of any mouse. And all you need is nothing: normal metabolism and hormonal levels, ideal joints and the absence of a genetic predisposition to damage them.
The rest of the advanced users who are at risk should take care and, just in case, check from time to time: how are things with their wrists?
Usually, a neurologist deals with the diagnosis of carpal tunnel syndrome, but if desired, it can be done independently.
It is enough to squeeze your palms into a fist with all your might or put them together the way goodies do in Indian films. If after two minutes the fingers do not begin to go numb, then there is no threat to the wrists. To be on the safe side, check your blood pressure. The numbers here do not play any role, the main thing is that at the same time goosebumps do not run across the palm of the squeezed hand.
If you are still numb and run, and even if you have a whole bunch of symptoms, you can’t hesitate. Urgently to the doctor. And not to a neurologist, who is recommended on medical forums by the same amateurs, but to a specialist in hand surgery.
Don't worry, no one will cut you right away. First, the doctor will assess the damage to the hand, and then offer the most optimal treatment tactics. Keep in mind that after surgery, relief comes after a few days, and with medications - after a few months.
Deal?
Before the advent of the first typewriter, a patient with carpal tunnel syndrome was considered exotic in medical practice, something like a bearded woman. But for a long time to hit the keys with impunity did not work. Just a few years later, doctors started talking about CZK as ... about "typist's syndrome."
If we compare how many professional typists were then and how many computer users are now, it is clear why doctors are sounding the alarm. After all, only in the last ten years the number of patients with "mouse bite" has increased by an order of magnitude. For example, in France in 1996, surgeons performed one or two operations per week on the carpal joint, and in 2006 - more than twenty. Does anyone seriously believe that the statistics jumped at the expense of milkmaids or musicians?
I would not like to exaggerate, but, according to Western experts, the situation will worsen further.
As they say, there are two news - good and bad. Let's start with the good one. We do not have to reinvent the wheel, based on the experience of foreign colleagues: back in 1999, a respected domestic publication dedicated to computers outlined way out of the crisis. Namely - prevention and once again prevention. Ergonomically designed workplace, reduction of hours spent at the computer, and timely appeal for help. By the way, everything together will come out much cheaper than the treatment of an already formed SZK.
Well, now the bad news. Most careerists are workaholics, and most of them are afraid of doctors. Such people will sit at the computer until victory and endure until victory. In addition, even in large IT companies we do not have a full-time position of an ergonomics specialist. Its functions are, at best, more or less distributed between the head of the administrative and economic department, whose duties include the purchase of computer equipment, and the personnel manager. And, despite the fact that the equipment is purchased the latest (in terms of performance), employees do without keyboards, mice and mouse pads that reduce the strain on the wrist. Needless to say, how are things in smaller and far from computer technology companies? What else ergonomics? They replaced the cathode-ray monitor with a liquid crystal monitor - and all right!
Light at the end of the tunnel
The salvation of the drowning is the work of the drowning themselves. If the management does not consider it necessary to take care of the wrists of subordinates, then they will have to do it themselves. Fortunately, computer manufacturers are not lazy - every year they bring to the market more and more reliable means of protection against SKZ.
So, gentleman's set of an experienced computer scientist:
- mouse pad with gel pad to reduce pressure on the wrist;
- "correct" computer mouse: firstly, without a "tail", secondly, allowing the hand to maintain its physiological position;
- ergonomic keyboard, for example, broken in half - each hand has its own half, or "humped", in which the right and left parts converge at an angle and wrist rests are provided.
All of the above today is almost a classic, but there are also frills. American hand surgeon Mark Eberbach has developed special gloves for working at a computer. They are without fingers, but with two soft pads on the wrists, anatomically located on both sides of the median nerve. To not be crushed. Another US invention is the springy keyboard. Presumably this should reduce the strain on the wrists when typing..
And finally, the last mouse squeak:
- a mouse standing in a column;
-mouse lying on its side;
-mouse, zyu-shaped arched - if you take it in your hand, the feeling that you are holding a gun.
-Against this background, a novelty from Artemy Lebedev's studio - a manipulator in the form of an arrow - looks, to put it mildly, faded. In addition, it does not differ in special ergonomics.
The cost of any of the ingenious mice is about one and a half thousand rubles.
Let's say the advance is still far away. It doesn't matter - you can use an absolutely free way to prevent "chronic injury from repetitive stress" - erg aerobics Oh. The name is beautiful, but in fact - exercises for the hands, but not simple, but developed by members of the American Physical Therapy Association. Slowly squeeze the brushes into fists, slowly unclench. Press your palms on the inside surface of the table top. Bend back your fingers. Each time the tension is held for ten seconds, each exercise is performed ten times in one go. The number of visits - no matter how lazy.
Not so long ago, another fairly large category of citizens joined the already known victims of RSI - owners of cell phones who type SMS messages too often. But their problems, perhaps, we will leave on the conscience of mobile operators.
