ABSTRACT
A number of alternative diagnoses have been attributed to individuals initially diagnosed as Repetitive strain injury (RSI) cases, in an attempt to provide a clinical explanation for their symptoms. J. Quintner summarises the use of the term RSI, particularly in Australia during the 1980s, and places it in a perspective of earlier conditions such as writer’s cramp. A use of the term RSI, which has been adopted by some, is as a non-specific diagnosis following the exclusion of other specific diagnoses. Some use ‘Type 2 RSI’ as a term to differentiate from these specific diagnoses. H. MacIver et al. refer to the Harrington criteria and the necessity of excluding other possible explanations for forearm pain in forming a diagnosis of ‘non-specific forearm pain’. The lack of specificity associated with an RSI diagnosis often extends to both the nature of the symptoms and the locus of those symptoms, again unhelpful in trying to establish the likely causation.
