Analysis of Electromyography on Computer Interaction Devices to the Risk of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Use of interaction devices on human-computer system may cause muscolusceletal disorders. This paper presents an Electromyography study to evaluate the hand muscle activities when it is interacted with the computer using mouse, keyboard and joystick. These muscles investigated are flexor pollicis brevis, flexor digitorium superficiallis and abductor pollicis brevis. Average of Root Mean Square (mRMS) signal was used as parameter. Experimental study was conducted where 8 females and 7 males were participated to complete virtual task for 15 minutes. Virtual manufacturing robots system was used as a case study. Non parametric statistical method was conducted to test the hypothesis. The result of this study shows that the highest risk of carpal tunnel syndrome was found in the joystick on flexor pollicis brevis muscle and abductor pollicis brevis muscle. Meanwhile on flexor digitorium superficiallis muscle contraction was found in the keyboard devices. Thus, use of mouse is better.