The following article comes from the January 1993 newsletter of Worksafe
Australia (reprinted with permission).  For more info, please contact:

   _--_|\             John Lamp, originating in Hobart, Tasmania
  /      \                 Phone: 002 23 1366 - Fax: 002 34 5685
  \_.--._/                   email: u734120@bruny.cc.utas.edu.au
        v <-----------------------------------------------------


                      GROUND BREAKING STUDY
                    RESEARCH DEBUNKS RSI MYTH

A ground-breaking study has found evidence of a physical
abnormality in RSI sufferers - debinking the myth that it is
primarily psychological.

Medical researchers from the University of Melbourne have found
that people with RSI (also known as Occupational Overuse
Syndrome) showed disturbance of the nerve pain pathways.

Simultaneous psychological tests showed the patients were not
hypochondriacs.

The study, with funding of more than $212,000 from Worksafe
Australia, was directed by Professor Richard Helme, of the
National Research Institute of Gerntology and Geriatric Medicine.

It involved 83 people with RSI and 75 painfree controls.

Prof Helme said that while numerous psychological and physical
explanations for RSI had been suggested, only a handful of
studies had purported to measure the physical or psychological
characteristics of the affected population.

Among the study's preliminary findings:

People with RSI show changes in the functioning of the nerve pain
pathways, with reduced response to a painful stimulus of both the
peripheral and central nervous system pathways on the affected
side.

Such reduced response is known to be consistent with the presence
of chronic pain in other situations.

The extent of the reduced response correlated closely with the
patients' own description of their pain.

Professor Helme found a close correlation between people's
subjective reports of pain and the objective physiological
measures of disturbed function.

In contrast, tests on the RSI patient's unaffected side showed
greater than normal peripheral responses, though their central
nervous system responses were no different from those of the
controls.

The researchers say that the increased local response may suggest
that some people are more susceptible to RSI than others.

People with RSI had higher than normal levels of anxiety,
depression, anger, confusion and fatigue.

But the researchers concluded that this was more likely to be the
result, rather than the cause, of their chronic pain.

Patients used a select, limited vocabulary to describe their
pain: words such as throbbing, hot-burning, aching, heavy,
tender, with tiring/exhausting being the most common term.

The researchers say such precise terms contrast with the diffuse
language used by psychologically disturbed patients or those
whose pain is of psychiatric origin.

Patients were convinced that their condition had an organic cause
and strongly believed that their own behaviour was the major
factor influencing their health.

They had relatively little faith in medical practitioners, luck
or chance.

More than 90% of those with RSI had not undergone any objective
diagnostic test except for an X-ray, and of those two thirds were
normal.

The study comprised two parts: the first measured local pain
receptor response to skin contact with capsaicin (the active
ingredient of peppers), along with mood states.

The second part, involving a smaller group, measured pain
threshold and cerebral cortex responses, along with measures of
hypochondriasis and health locus of control.