How To Choose An Ergonomic Mouse For Your Client's Pain

Recommending a mouse isn’t as simple as matching a product to a symptom.

In this episode of the Business of Ergonomics Podcast, Darcie breaks down how to choose the right mouse based on root cause analysis, biomechanics, and task demands — not trends or quick fixes. You’ll learn how different mouse designs affect wrist posture, forearm loading, shoulder strain, and motor control, and how to make recommendations that actually hold up in practice.

This episode is part two of a three-part series on office input devices and is designed for ergonomics and healthcare professionals who want to make confident, defensible mouse recommendations.

Link to blogpost: https://www.ergonomicshelp.com/blog/choosing-the-right-mouse-in-office-ergonomics 

Are you a healthcare professional curious about how office ergonomics assessments could fit into your services? I’ve got you covered with some valuable (and free!) resources at www.ergonomicshelp.com/free-training.

Transcript

0:00

Well, hey there. We are talking about how to get your client the best mouse that addresses their concerns, their pain, and their tasks. Welcome to the Business of Ergonomics podcast. I'm your host, Darcy Jeremy. I'm a board certified professional agonist with over 15 years of experience delivering ergonomics programs to employers of all different types. In this podcast, I share what other healthcare professionals are already doing and being with ergonomics assessments and how to land those clients that you dream of. Without further ado, let's jump into this episode right now. We're talking about how to best recommend the right mouse for your client in the office environment. I'm coming at this from an angle of I had to learn while I was on the job. I started in office ergonomics after. I had already been in the industrial ergonomic world, and if you don't know my story, I thought shifting from industrial ergonomics assessments to office ergonomics assessments was going to be a literal cakewalk, almost like a retirement, where I knew that there was gonna be a keyboard, a mouse, a desk, a monitor, and a chair, and I just had to sort it all out when I was at the assessment. When I finally had to recommend an ergonomic type of mouse, I don't even know where to go to, to find what type of mouse. And other than general common sense, I didn't know much about mouse design and how it related to symptoms, so that's why we're talking about this today. It's very near and dear to my heart, especially when I hear of other industrial ergonomics and. Other healthcare professionals jumping into office ergonomics in fact, one of the members of the Accelerate Business of Ergonomics program asked me a question about how do we get to know what type of keyboard and mouse is best for our client? Well, thus spawns this episode and the series of episode that we're in right now. So part one, if you hadn't already listened to that, it's about root cause analysis and why that should be the absolute foundation of any sort of recommendation that you use and you recommend in an office, ergonomic assessment or any sort of ergonomic process. And then today we're talking about, as you already know, how to select the best mouse for your client and what types of. Mice are out there in today's modern age. All of this is going to be beyond the symptom based. Strategy that sometimes you can hear about on internet today, especially when you're looking at blogs written by folks who may not have the expertise of many years of doing ergonomics and recommending ergonomics products. If you're reading blogs based on someone's symptoms, then they might just recommend a certain type of mouse based on what reduces their pain in their wrist. And that might help that person, but it's not going to help every situation that you see, especially if you're gonna be recommending the most ergonomic type of mouse for that person from your point of view, that expert point of view. And you're getting paid for this stuff, right? Recommending the right mouse for the right reason after a very thorough root cause analysis and really understanding the types of mice that are on the market today is absolutely life changing for your client. We can reduce their discomfort, we can improve their quality of work, their quality of life, and their productivity before we begin. I want to make sure we're all starting off on the same foot and this is what we are actually gonna be doing here today moving forward as ergonomics professionals from the very top floor 30,000 foot view, we are gonna be applying the definition of ergonomics, and you are a seasoned ergonomics expert just like me. I can only assume, so you already know that we are fitting the work to the worker. it's not the other way around. When it's the other way around, that's when problems can arise, and that's probably why you as an ergonomics expert is being called into that workplace in the first place, right? We are gonna be using the root cause analysis. We're not just chasing the symptoms that that person is reporting. If you are not yet familiar with root cause analysis or how to use them, I really want to recommend you listen to the episode that comes before this one. This is another really important point. We're gonna be looking at applying the hierarchy of controls. Just because we're talking about MICE today doesn't necessarily mean that you need to recommend a mouse to your client. I wanna encourage you to reach out to different vendors. Some vendors have programs available for professional agonists so that you can try their mouse. Try their keyboard. There is a blog and download so you can get the most out of this episode. So check out the show notes, head to the blog, and get started with recommending the best mouse for your client. Let's start off with mouse selection, why it matters. The mouse, technically speaking is not a neutral tool. this is a repetitive input device that fundamentally changes your client's wrist posture, forearm rotation, tendon loading, nerve compression, shoulder and elbow torque and motor control demands, and in many knowledge work jobs, your client's gonna be using the mouse thousands of times per day. And yet it's often treated as an afterthought or worse, a cosmetic comfort item. So if nothing is done after that person starts to notice awkwardness with the mouse pain over a period of time you might. Be witness to more extreme situations and common conditions associated with poor mouse Mechanics can include carpal tunnel syndrome, lateral and medial epicondylitis, corvin shoulder and neck fatigue, thumb and finger tendon issues. Here are the three biggest mistakes I see ergonomics professionals make when recommending mice. Number one, they're recommending based on diagnosis alone, and I have certainly seen this time and time again, especially with people who are just getting familiar with the types of mice out there and the ergonomics process. Don't fall into the trap that wrist pain automatically equals a vertical mouse without understanding why the wrist hurts in the first place. It could be that the desk height is just way too high for that person, or they're using a setup that's not ideal for them whatsoever. You can fix that by doing a thorough root cause analysis. The second biggest mistake that I see is ignoring the task demands. The way that I recommend doing an ergonomics assessment, and if you are learning on how to do an ergonomics assessment in the office, I want to encourage you to look at my program called the Ergonomics Blueprint. You have to do a thorough task analysis in order to recommend the best product because precision graphic work and spreadsheet navigation are not the same motor problem, and they're gonna need different solutions, not only in setup. But types of mice available and skipping trials. This is the third one. The third part here is skipping trials. As an ergonomics professional, you may be able to narrow down a certain type of mouse. But there can be a big difference between angles and types of mice that are available per brand So if you avoid these three mistakes, then you're already on the right curve. Let's then talk about biomechanics, what the mouse does to the body, and I wanna get a little bit mechanical. I want you to think of the upper body as a linked system of levers. You have your shoulder, your elbow, down to your forearm, down to your wrist, and the fingers from there. The angles matter so much here. Neutral posture isn't like a fancy book learning word that agonists talk about, It actually is a huge part that we want to recommend to our clients because neutral means that it's not bringing in extra ergonomics risk when the neutral posture is achieved. Then there's lots of positive things that come out. For instance, like a neutral wrist posture actually means that there's lower tendon friction. Reduced pronation not only means that it's more of a neutral. Posture, it means that there's lower forearm muscle activation. Reduce reach is not all about how things are positioned on the workstation. It means that there's actually a lower shoulder torque. If I were to put this into like a very simple strategy, the further that you move away from neutral, the higher the internal load. And over time of being exposed to that higher load with that awkward joint angle, the likelihood that discomfort is going to be put into that system. Have you heard the word torque? If you have taken any ergonomics courses in your university or college days, then maybe you were introduced to this idea of moments around a joint. so when a mouse is actually too far away or too high, or forces awkward wrist angles, that moment arm increases and the muscles must work harder for the same task. And we know that because if you were to hold a box 30 inches away from your body, that is fundamentally more forceful and creates more torque on your lower back compared to keeping that box as close as possible to you. When the moment arm increases, the muscles must work harder for the same task. Over time, that results in fatigue. Fatigue leads to compensation, and compensation leads to pain. Okay, let's look at tendons and nerves for a second too. Tendons glide through confined spaces and nerves hate compression, wrist extension and deviation. Increase the carpal tunnel. Pressure pronation changes the tendon pass and increases friction. So a mouse just doesn't feel uncomfortable. It changes the tissue loading. Predisposes that angle, that wrist position to more trauma One more thing I wanna talk about from an ergonomics perspective, because you know I love me some ergonomics. I wanna talk about motor control and Fitz Law and this is all stuff happen up. In the brain because ergonomics is not just about biomechanics or the physical body, it's about motor control. and this can actually play a role in the type of mouse that you recommend for your client. So let's take a deeper dive into Fitz Law. Fitz Law tells us that movement time depends on the distance to the target and the size of the target. So when you change the mouse, you change the movement strategy Then there's a speed accuracy trade off here, and it can change the cognitive demand. A high angle vertical mouse might reduce pronation, but it can also reduce the fine motor bandwidth. And then let's look at a track ball. A track ball eliminates arm movement. But it concentrates movement in the fingers or the thumb, and there's always a trade off here. The goal isn't perfection, it's optimization for the task. So if you have done a really good thorough task analysis, you'll best be able to recommend the best mouse for that person. If they're doing graphic design versus spreadsheet work, there is a way that you can navigate this. Let's bring another level to this conversation because gosh knows we're not just gonna fit the best type of mouse based on motor control or even the moment arm. We need to get real with ergonomic principles, and it's so critical here. You could recommend the best mouse on the market. But obviously your client can still be in pain because that mouse doesn't override the bad workstation setup. And that's why you wanna make sure that you are doing a thorough root cause analysis, thorough observations, And really what this means is observing the person doing the work, pulling out your tape measure, taking some measurements, and getting real. I have some real big generalities here, but when you do your own thorough ergonomics risk analysis, you're definitely gonna come up with your own. But really, you wanna make sure that some really basic ones is that. Before you jump to any sort of mouse recommendation, you gotta make sure that they are mouthing on the same plane as their keyboard and that is within a neutral posture that they are not doing any excessive external shoulder rotation when they're mouthing eight. No mouse in this world is gonna save that client from external shoulder rotation. You wanna make sure that they are mounting in an optimal reach zone, and you wanna make sure that they have appropriate desk and chair height combination to fit that person's stature and whatever else they have going on. If you skip those basic ergonomics principles. Then you're just setting yourself and your client up for failure. There I said it. I said it. You're setting yourself up for failure and that's why I teach this in the ergonomics blueprint. We're talking big picture and ergonomic staples. If you want more information about Ergonomics Blueprint and how I can teach you how to do an ergonomics assessment, go to the description. I'm gonna show you how you can get started. The end of the day, whatever product that markets themself as a standalone solution is not a standalone solution. It's impossible. Office ergonomics is a moving system with lots of interrelated parts that give you the emergent property of feeling pain or feeling good. So you have to look at this with a magnifying glass, all the moving pieces in a system, and that brings us to. The mice. This is why we're here. I'm gonna give you some goods on this. I have this amazing comparison chart that compares different mice on the market today. So these are mice with excellent reputations and compares them on different features. So it can definitely help you make a decision. You know where that is. Yeah, the show notes. I'm gonna show you how to get that. Actually, if you just go with the blog post for this podcast episode, you're gonna get a download right there. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Let's start with the standard mouse. Yes, the standard mouse that comes with every keyboard in this world today. Standard Mouse. The good thing about it is that everybody knows how to use it. My favorite part about the standard mouse is that it's actually an ambidextrous option. When we talked about the hierarchy of ergonomics controls in the last episode, you already know that we start with engineering solutions. Then we do administrative straight, then behavioral, then personal protective equipment. Ambidextrous design falls into the world of administrative controls, so you can get a fairly good idea of how you can eliminate that ergonomics risk by job design with ambidextrous options, there's certainly a way that you can get that person to use the index finger for left clicking so they can keep that mental pathway. To, just reverse those buttons on that mouse so they can continually use that left click button with their index finger. You can Google it, it's very easy, but you can set it up for your client in the ergonomics assessment, and that is excellence in ergonomics. Why would you want that person to use an ambidextrous mouse? If they have a very high level of pain in the right wrist, carpal tunnel, things like that, then eliminating the pain on the right side by left-handed mouse using That tip of index finger clipping is a very big tip that can eliminate the pain. Takes about a week to get used to it. That's huge. I digress. We're talking about a standard mouse. We're talking about the good parts of it, so it's familiar ambidextrous options. It's good for large sweeping tasks. The limitations of a standard mouse is that it requires pronation and often there is some anar and radial deviation. So this can actually cause some discomfort and it can also create contact stress between the base of the hand and the wrist and that surface area of the work surface as well. Vertical mice. Some of my favorite mice available on the market today. Why do they work? Well? That magic word of neutral wrist posture reduces pronation. It encourages a neutral wrist posture and it offloads the forearm tendons. The limitations of vertical mice, really interesting part here. There's lots of different sizes usually and angles of vertical mice. Mice comes in different angles and sizes, so you can really get this to fit your client. You might have an option of measuring from their palm to their middle finger, and that helps you to choose the right size for them. But do your due diligence on the mice that you're gonna recommend so you can get them the right angle and the right size. So with a vertical mouse, there is a learning curve associated with it, and depending on that person and the specifics around with that, they may want a forearm support, although it's very, very few and far between that I have ever seen it in my practice. Sometimes the precision can initially take a drop while that person is learning how to use a vertical mouse. but in terms of reducing the ergonomic risk for that person and allowing that person to work from a handshake position or more of a neutral posture is huge. Semi vertical mice are those types of mice that aren't quite vertical, but are not a standard mouse either. They're great for preventative users and those people who are struggling a bit with the full vertical adaptation. It's more neutral than regular, but it's not absolute neutral. Let's talk about the roller mouse and central pointing devices. They're useful because it eliminates lateral reaching. It reduces the shoulder load because things are so close to that person and it keeps the hands at midline. I once recommended a roller mouse for a person to help with the return to work. So the background of the story is that someone was walking across the parking lot. It was Canada and it was February. So they slipped a ice and broke their elbow because it happened at work. This was a workers' compensation board claim, and that company needed to get that person back to work as soon as it was safe for them to return to work. that was to eliminate the compounding of the cost related to that claim. So anyway, we had this person return back to work as soon as their doctor said it was okay. And what we ended up doing, because their right arm dominate, and that was when the broken elbow happened. We got them a roller mouse and they were able to use. Their right hand and their left hand because it keeps the hands pretty much at midline and allowed them to work. and it probably helped with their healing because they were engaged with work. Four roller mice, and sometimes there can be issues with reaching for the keyboard because there is more of a horizontal distance there. So keep that in mind when recommending it because it might not be awesome for all of your clients. Let's talk about track balls. Let's talk about track balls and if you were a nineties kid like me, then you know. a track ball is basically an old style mouse flipped upside down. You know how old style mice, they had this ball at the very bottom of it instead of a laser. What a track ball is that ball on the underside put on the top so that you can navigate it with your fingers. The balls on the top. So the big distinction in track balls is the size of the ball and where it's located. Sometimes you have a thumb controlled ball versus a finger controlled ball. Sometimes you have a very small ball versus a very big ball. So I want you to keep in mind how this relates to that person's discomfort and what else they have going on. The pro of this is because the ball is on top of the mouse. There's very minimal arm movement here, and this is great for shoulder pain and it's also very good in tight spaces. The con is based on where the ball is and what size it is. We wanna be very hesitant to recommend one, just that overloads the thumb, because that's an awkward position. And remember how much we use the mice in a typical day, thousands of times a day. That can cause overload in the thumb. The real big thing here is that you can get some really neat track balls. The size of the ball matters when there's a bigger ball in a track ball that encourages the whole hand to be involved. So that technically speaking should be a little bit more neutral and easier on the hand because you're not. Exerting all the force in the little tendon to move compared with a small ball that can really cause fingertip strain. So be aware of that. Next up I wanna talk about track pads. These are probably the most well known for Mac users and probably the best setup for Mac users because you can use those gesture heavy tasks. And these are also useful for grip pain. So if someone has some lateral epicondylitis issues with gripping a mouse, then you might wanna look at a track pad or something related to a track pad, maybe even a roller mouse,'cause you're eliminating the to grip. The limitations with a track pad are related to fatigue with dragging items on it and finger overload. Next, let's talk about joystick mice. Joystick mice is something that we don't see very often as ergonomics professionals. These are often classified as accessibility devices, but these can be very useful for some people. The key thing here is that you want to. Encourage the person to engage the arm and not the wrist.'cause if they're just using the wrist, when you're using these types of mice, then you can actually get into a lot of awkward, not neutral postures in the wrist. the joysticks also really good for tremors and neurological conditions and severe wrist limitation because it engages the larger arm muscles. The next thing I wanna dive into is matching the mouse to the pain. And the reason why this is the very last piece of the puzzle is that I didn't wanna give you the goods at first. I wanted you to go through the thorough ergonomics process so we don't just jump to matching the mouse for the pain So the best type of mice available for carpal tunnel in my opinion, are either the vertical mice or the roller mouse. Or if you don't wanna look at my solutions, it's switching to left hand and nosing. that may be even way better than a mouse because you're eliminating all hazards on that segment of the body. For tennis elbow, you wanna look at a mouse that can reduce the gripping. So things like a track ball might be really useful or a vertical or central type of device as well would be useful. You might also wanna consider alternating hands as well for shoulder pain. You should be looking at whatever's going on in that reach, whether it's a long reach to go to type, or if that mouse is positioned in a really awkward position. You wanna fix that first. That also includes external rotation and how high the workplaces. A really good solution here is to look at a compact keyboard. A compact keyboard eliminates right-handed external rotation with the mounting, You might also wanna look at central pointing devices like a roller mouse because it's very much closer to that person. However, if you are gonna be using like a roller mouse type of device, it does increase the horizontal reach to the keyboard. So something you have to weigh. If shoulder pain is only on one side of the body, like the right hand mouthing arm, consider left hand mouthing because that would eliminate the pain. And of course, you wanna do your due diligence to make sure that all the workstation heights and distances are within the recommended parameters for arthritis. Some of the best things that I have found are large contoured mice that allows that hand to just rest in like the hand shoe type of mouse that's really useful. And you wanna look at devices that doesn't allow pinching. So we're not really looking at things that increases. track balls can be really useful too for thumb pain. If that person already has a thumb pain and is using a track ball, You might wanna consider using a roller mouse or a vertical mouse to make sure that person's in a better setup. I just wanna reiterate how important work height and reach distance. Is in selecting the best type of mouse. In many cases, you might not even need to recommend a mouse because there's just so much horizontal reaching that's required, or their neutral elbow height is so much lower than the work surface. If you don't know what I'm talking about with any of this, then. The Ergonomics Blueprint is a really good resource, and it could be the good next step for you. Check out the show notes and how you can get started with that. Last but not least, a new mouse is a motor learning task, so this is not gonna be like a fairy godmothers magical wand. It's going to take. Three to seven days of adaptation. It could be a temporary drop in speed. However, over time there should be an improve in comfort. It's not gonna happen immediately. So what this means if someone quits after one day, you haven't failed, they just haven't adapted yet. So you need to coach those folks to keep on trying it out. I want you to try everything yourself and build your own ergonomics library of equipment. So I wanna be real with you here, and you probably already figured this out. There is no best mouse available on the market today. There is only the right mouse for the right person doing the right task in the right setup. thanks for listening to the Business of Ergonomics podcast. If this episode helped you share it with another person considering getting into ergonomics or other ergonomics, professional friends, because that helps to get the word out. I'll see you in the next episode where we're going to be closing off the three part series and I'm gonna be talking about the best keyboards to recommend You can get started with office ergonomics assessments. Today, healthcare professionals are seeing the potential and opportunity to add office ergonomics assessments to their practice and services. Go to ergonomics help.com. Slash begin to get the exact seven step process that works so that you can get started today without the confusion or overwhelm. Just head to ergonomics help.com/begin now.