Medical Diagnosis: Bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome
Joel is a senior project manager for a software development firm. Using a computer is critical to his work. However, he is unable to type at a traditional computer keyboard without pain.

He was diagnosed last June with carpal tunnel syndrome in both wrists, and he began a comprehensive treatment program. To strengthen his hands and wrists, he performed a variety of exercises under the direction of a physical therapist. To reduce the pain of keyboarding, he took an anti-inflammatory drug and wore wrist braces whenever he used a keyboard. The pain continued.

Joel's employer tried to ease his discomfort by providing him with a more ergonomic chair. The typing demands of his job were also changed from an average of eight to ten hours a day to only two to three hours a day. "But it didn't really help much. My wrists still hurt every time I touched a keyboard."

After investigating alternative keyboards, Joel purchased the Kinesis. "I could feel the difference immediately: I wasn't in pain. On a traditional flat keyboard, I'm in pain right away." When Joel had used the Kinesis keyboard for less than a month, he was able to type pain-free for the required two or three hours a day - without braces or medication. 'I don't have to do anything special or take extra precautions. If I just am careful with my hands the remainder of the day, I'm fine the next day."

Joel had few problems adapting to the Kinesis keyboard. "The hardest things to learn were the new locations of the cursor keys. It also took some memorization to be sure to hit the right key from among Backspace, Delete, Space and the other thumb keys. But I learned how to get at them all in a matter of hours." Joel also found that he had some difficulty distinguishing the Caps Lock from the Tab key while touch-typing. "I still mistakenly hit Tab for Caps Lock on occasion. But because there's a tone and a light for Caps Lock, I always know when I'm in Caps mode."

Joel especially likes the Kinesis keyboard's separated left- and right-hand keywells. "I can tell that they noticeably reduce the stresses of typing." He also appreciates the Kinesis palm rests. "I like the way they're built into the keyboard at just the right angle." Joel was never comfortable using wrist rests with a traditional keyboard. "It's very hard to get a good wrist rest position with a traditional keyboard. The position was always wrong and you could never get the rest at the right height for comfortable typing." Joel uses Kinesis' optional palm pads in conjunction with the integrated palm rests. 'When I type, I lay my palms across the pads, and it makes typing a lot less stressful.

"I like the Kinesis keyboard so much for work, I'm thinking of buying one for home use."