Evoluent Mouse
Ergonomic mouse
From a relaxed standing position with your arms at your side raise your right hand while holding your elbow still until your fore arm is level with the floor. Spread you fingers apart and rotate your hand until your palm is facing down – keeping your elbow at your side. Now if you are anything like me your hand is rotated about as far as it can. In mechanical parlance, the wrist is “hard against the stops.” When you are using a conventional mouse it is in this rather tense and uncomfortable position that your hand remains. As a designer I often spend days on end at the computer modeling in 3D – left hand on the space ball and keyboard with right hand on the mouse. Over time I began experience a myriad of painful symptoms from fore arm throbbing to thumb tenderness to shoulder aches. These discomforts grew into debilitating pain to the point I wondered if I could continue in my chosen profession. And then I discovered the Evoluent Mouse – and instantly the pain and discomfort tailed away to nothing.
Repeat the previous exercise but this time place your hand in a vertical – hand shake like – position. You will find that your hand is now very relaxed residing as it does pretty close to halve way between hard right rotation and hard left. The Evoluent mouse looks like a mouse turned on its edge with the laser tracking business on the edge of the mouse. This configuration positions the hand and wrist in a basically neutral position thereby avoiding the stresses rotating the hand to a palm down position induces.
I cannot overstate how drastic an improvement this mouse is from all others. Both Microsoft and Logitech make products which rotate the hand partially toward the vertical but these are partial measures and do not afford the total neutral ergonomics provided by the Evoluent. If you are fighting soreness or pain from you mouse arm-hand – please give your body a break and give the Evoluent mouse a try.
01/17/12(Note: For those with smaller hands Evoluent has provided a sizing chart.--OH — editors)
Evoluent Vertical Mouse (Right Hand Model) $90 Available from Amazon Evoluent Vertical Mouse (Left Hand Model)
