In our quaint uk legal system carpal
tunnel syndrome is only recognised as a
prescribed industrial disease for users of
power tools. Category a12
this excludes from protection the many
users of office keyboards who suffer from
upper limb disorder (uld) or repetitive
strain injury (rsi)
however tenosynovitis "a traumatic
inflamation of the hand or forearm, or of
the associated tendon sheaths" is
recognised as disease a8 affecting those
involved in manual labour or, frequent or
repeated movements of the hand or wrists.
For example, routine assembly workers.
"cramp of the had or forearm due to
repetitive movements. For example,
writer's cramp" is recognised as disease
a4 due to prolonged periods of
handwriting, typing or other repetitive
movements of the fingers, hand or arm.
For example, typists, clerks and routine
assemblers"
a consultant, engaged by my partner's
employers, was quite supportive linking
neck injuries (long standing because of
structural wear and tear problems) and an
upper limb problem. He was absolutely
categoric that my wife should not return
to work until stress related issues were
resolved. He could see no way a person
suffering from stress would be able to
effectively follow precautions necessary
to prevent recurrence of pain.
There has been much criticism of our
government's medical assessment centres
for benefit claimants. These are now run
by private contractors. Our purpose is
claiming benefit was not for the small
amount of money on offer but to ensure
disability protection when my wife returns
to work. We found the assessment carried
out was excellent and thorough
the consultant has advised that mrs
worldlife has "conducive nerve disorder"
- a new techy term to add to our
repertoire. He stated quite clearly that
she did not have tenosynovitis.
So we are awaiting with interest whether
he will allow a claim under industrial
disease a4 to proceed.
Thanks to an excellent post by donna
elsewhere I was able to get links to a
site on thoracic outlet syndrome. This
certainly was helpful in understanding the
extensive tests conducted by the
government consultant for the
associations between the neck and wrist
injuries.
