Case Study - Eric

Eric was suffering from terrible problems in his arms and neck from using the computer. I watched him write emails and it was very clear what was happening. His neck was craning forward, he was sitting too high and he was stabbing at the keys from a great height putting unnecessary tension into the action.

We changed the height of his chair so that he could comfortably rest his elbows on the desk and I showed him how to type with much gentler action and with his wrists resting on the computer. He used the computer a lot for work and so changing these habits was not instant. In the sessions that I had with him he started to make good headway and yet, under pressure at work, he would soon forget what he had learnt and the pains would come back again. I experimented with giving him a mock pressurised work situation and sat by him as he dealt with increasing stress. I alerted him at every point that he started to tense up again and reminded him of the new ways he had learned. He began to integrate the new habits bit by bit in each session and a few weeks later he rang me to say that he had just had the most pressurised day at work that he could remember – and he had managed to come away from it without any pains!