Can anyone recommend an ergonomic mouse / mouse replacement?

Hi all,

My colleague has problems with her shoulder. I’m not exactly sure of the specifics, but the doctor has advised her to stop using her mouse with her right hand (pain is in the right shoulder).

Currently she is using her mouse with her left hand and doing some on-page navigation with the keyboard. She finds this kind of hard and asked me to look into ergonomic mice / mouse alternatives.

So far I found mouse/pen which we will order and rollermouse which we are still considering.

My questions:

  1. Does anyone have any experience with either of these?
  2. Does anyone have an alternative suggestion as to what my colleague could do?

Am grateful for any replies.

If she’s forced to use her non-dominant hand, it’s possible that an external touch pad would be easier? Not sure what kind of work she’s doing, hard to say if I’d recommend that or not…

My first though was carpal tunnel, but if it’s her shoulder my guess would be

If it is, I don’t think a different mouse would help much if she were to continue making similar movements with the rest of her arm.

As she’s right handed, is there such a thing as a left handed mouse? Can a regular mouse be configured differently?

Maybe a touch screen ?

Yeah, I guess I need to know if it is due to having to move her whole arm, her wrist, or just her fingers that cause the pain.

I love TrackBall mice. I only need to use my thumb to move the mouse around the screen and my fingers for clicking.

I’ve seen the vertical mouse, which is interesting, not sure if it would work for her.

Not sure about that; there are “ambidextrous” mice - those with no shaping so they should fit either hand.

[quote=“Mittineague, post:3, topic:101847”]
Can a regular mouse be configured differently?
[/quote]Yes, I’m pretty sure. (Although learning to use the buttons the “wrong” way round is easier than learning to control the mouse in the non-dominant hand, in my experience.)

I use a mousepad with built-in wrist rest, which makes a huge difference to my whole arm - especially now I also have a chair with an arm-rest I can rest my elbow on while working.

I know somebody who found Trackball a brilliant solution for wrist/hand problems, but I don’t know how much it would help for shoulder.

I also had this issue as well. Thankfully, I don’t feel pain when I use a normal mouse… only when I use the keyboard. Anyways, I remember researching this type of mouse for carpal tunnel.

You hold the mouse side ways and it feels a lot more comfortable since there is 0 wrist movement.

It should… As you don’t move your arm at all (if you use it right). The ball is your mouse, so you simply rotate the ball with your thumb keeping your hand stationary. I’ve been using one for years.

Thank you all very much for the replies.

I’ll ask my colleague what the exact problem/symptoms are when I see her next week.

As for the work she does, it’s seven hours a day sitting at a computer typing Word documents, working on spread sheets, writing emails, that kind of thing. A normal office job basically.

I’ll also pass on the recommendations. The trackball sounds like a good solution and the vertical mouse we can try straight away as there’s one guy that uses one already (I just thought it was a Mac thing, not an ergonomic thing).

There’s a new(ish) oyster-shaped mouse that is said to be very ergonomic. Not sure whether it’s worth getting, though. Here’s a review: http://allthingsergo.com/blog/reviews/oyster-mouse-review/

The next time we’re on the mainland, I really must find a computer shop and try one of these. (I’ve said that before, but we always seem to have better things to do when we’re on holiday. )

The wireless ones are really inexpensive (the wired ones jumped to over 300 dollars…)

I have the wireless one at my office at work and love it! I have the wired one at home, bought it many years ago for a FAR less price (no idea why they jumped to 300, but oh boy, that’s expensive).

Jings - so they are! At that price, I could afford to just order one and see how I get on with it. The one I’d been looking at was a lot dearer than that. (Can’t remember the make - or whether it was wireless or not.)

[quote=“cpradio, post:11, topic:101847”]
the wired ones jumped to over 300 dollars…
[/quote]I’ve just checked out the price of that here ands it’s £329.00 ~ $529!

I use a traditional mouse and can’t even figure out how my shoulder has anything to do with anything? My shoulder doesn’t move at all with little 1 and 2 inch wrist movements.

My guess is general posture is more to blame here. They must not be sitting and using kb/ms in a comfortable position.

Proper height of chair, use of arm wrest, position of mouse, angle of arm, etc etc.

In any case, the only way to reduce the mouse movements is switch to trackball, but they will still need proper posture when using it to avoid shoulder strain.

Same here, I have the mouse set up quite sensitive, so only 2" movement covers the full width of the screen. My arm doesn’t move, my wrist rests on the desk and doesn’t move.

How is this still open after a year anyway?

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LOL

I was just browsing the “suggested topics” area. Didn’t look at original date when I replied.

Off Topic:

Completely off topic @zackw I love your avatar :slight_smile:

You would be amazed how big a role it does play. I’d have said the same at the point this thread was started, but since then I’ve suffered a frozen shoulder (now fixed, thankfully) and I was surprised how much it affected things. I now have a trackerball (as recommended by @cpradio), but even with that, and having my arm supported on the chair arm, I found it affected my shoulder - to the point where I ended up using a right-handed trackerball left-handed for months.

For me it’s not like moving my wrist to mouse makes my shoulder move.

But I can feel a small movement inside my shoulder area.

Extremely slight, and I would never have noticed if I hadn’t read this topic, but there is some movement that happens.

Maybe if nerves were in different places or whatever it would be a problem. Thankfully it isn’t for me.

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I had/have problems with sore fingers clicking the mouse and learnt to use my left hand to spread the load. But then it just moves the problem to the left as well.

I got a ‘bamboo’ track pad like this http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wacom-Bamboo-Touchpad-Digital-Stylus/dp/B00ECWM3MA although i bought the wireless one. I am pretty pleased with it as you can use it will your fingers or there is a pen tool. I tend to use the pen tool. The only problem i have is that the batteries die really quick so i would buy the cabled version in hindsight.

For info i have a program called workrave which prompts for regular breaks, it also capture some information. So on a typical day i click my mouse around 2000-2500 times and move the mouse around 350+metres! Which is more than a third of a Km! so it’s not insignificant amount of work that your fingers/wrist is doing.

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i got this software called Mousefighter. Good riddance to the mouse. you can check it out on mousefighter.com