BIOS: Technology Means Business

If your hands are not as nimble or quick as they used to be, don’t worry - it doesn’t have to affect the fun you are having with your computer.

Designer Appliances’ AirO2bic (pronounced aerobic) grip-less mouse may both prevent and remediate Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS), claims the company.

In fact, an on-going clinical study by Designer Appliances has shown an improvement in Carpal Tunnel Syndrome symptoms after only 2 months of using the gripless AirO2bic mouse ($99.99). If you find it difficult to use a regular mouse because of a physical disability, an injury, or a disease like Parkinson’s or arthritis, this mouse may be the answer.

The Aerobic Mouse is made of sturdy black plastic molded into a shape that allows you to rest your hand vertically into the base. With your hand in this ‘hand-shake’ position your fingers rest on the large mound in the mouse allowing your fingers to easily reach the two buttons and mouse wheel.

To move the cursor on the screen you move the entire mouse just as you do with a standard mouse. You don’t have to grip the mouse in any way - you simply rest your hand on the mouse.

When you move your hand, the mouse moves with it. At first this may seem a little awkward since the mouse is so large, yet it should glide easily on the desktop and after a few uses seems quite natural. An optical sensor ensures the mouse’s accuracy.

The Arthritis Foundation commended it for ‘Ease of Use’. It is a combination of the AirO2bic Gripless mouse and the Clickless software, for PC or Mac. For those as yet unimpaired; if the logic that not using the muscles that can become injured is not instinctive to you then a comparison of the types of grip used to manipulate mice for hours every day, week after week might just help to explain why those who take action at the first signs of injury (or before) tend to solve the issue before it becomes a problem.

And unlike most alternative mouse products, that other manufacturers designated as ergonomic, Designer Appliances says it has clinical evidence from a study on normal subjects and subjects with CTS that shows that after only two months of AirO2bic mouse use all those with CTS improved as measured by Nerve Conduction Velocity (NCV) testing, the test used to diagnose CTS.

A number of subjects once positive are now negative for CTS by NCV (and very happy about it). The study is on-going at a Rehab and Electrodiagnostic Medicine Clinic in Florida and the Doctor conducting the study concludes in his interim report thus: ‘Congratulations this is very exciting as we now have a new tool, the AirO2bic mouse, to offer computer users to prevent CTS as well as improve [persons with] the syndrome.’

While the debate rages as to what causes impairment such as CTS, changing only one variable, from a regular to an AirO2bic Gripless mouse, in this study has made all the difference.

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