Do you experience any pain when using your computer mouse? Does your wrist, forearm, elbow or shoulder ache during or after using a mouse?

With such widespread use of computers and mice, we are seeing a growing number of people looking for practical solutions that will make their computing more easeful and less painful.

To help you decide on which mouse is right for you, here is an easy to follow guide for the most common hand, arm and shoulder injuries and how to address them for your home and office.

The index finger often becomes sensitive due to the repeated clicking of the mouse. The pain caused can then radiate through the hand and up to the elbow. Symptoms include aching, tingling and pain of the index finger. Learn keyboard shortcuts so that there is less clicking of the mouse.

The 3M Joystick mouse is a vertical mouse that incorporates a button on the top of the mouse to be used with the thumb instead of the index finger, enabling your index finger to take a much earned break. The hand is also placed in a vertical position to allow the wrist and forearm to rest in a neutral position.

The most commonly recognised of computer related injuries, carpal tunnel syndrome, involves both the wrist and forearm. Other complications can include tender elbow (tennis elbow) and general aching of the forearm and wrist sometimes accompanied by sharp intermittent pain in the wrist.

The ideal position for a regular mouse is directly in line with your shoulder. Larger keyboards force the mouse to be further out to the right and can cause neck and shoulder pain from reaching to one side to operate the mouse. Also mouse drift is common, where the mouse slowly drifts further to the side during the course of the day. The result: tension in the neck and shoulders which can even show up as headaches and lethargy.

The roller bar type mice sit in front of the keyboard so you don’t have to rotate your arm/elbow out to one side. These include the Contour RollerMouse Pro2, Contour RollerMouse Free2, Nomus Navigator and the Trackbar Emotion.

The trackball mouse allows stability of the mouse as the ball moves the cursor and the physical mouse remains still. This is great for people who have a tendency to drift your mouse out to the side.

The versatile touchpad mice bring mousing to a central position beneath the keyboard, they can also be used either side of the keyboard as well.

As well as having the right equipment, simply taking the time to have adequate breaks can make a vital difference (recommended is a 1-2 minute break every 45 minutes). We can all get so focussed on what we are doing that we forget to take breaks, therefore a helpful reminder software such as RSIGuard can help you with this.  Hand, wrist and forearm, neck and shoulder exercises are also great to do during these mini breaks.

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