Genevieve Roach '94 can't type or play piano for more than an hour a time. Any longer than that, and the pain in her wrists brings her to a halt.

A doctor recently told Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra bassoonist Glenn M. Davis '95 he couldn't play his instrument for four or five months. He can only hope that he won't have to wait a year, like other musicians bothered by pain similar to his, before his doctor lifts the restriction.

Last semester, Ishir Bhan '96 began noticing a pain in his wrists which developed after he had been typing at his computer keyboard for a few hours or more, forcing him to stop frequently to rest.

This semester, thanks to the purchase of a new keyboard equipped with a wrist rest and specially designed to allow for more natural wrist movements, Bhan's pain hardly ever recurs. And Bhan, who is co-president of Digitas, a students group focusing on emerging technologies spends about five hours per day on his computer, between logging onto the student network and working on papers.

Roach hasn't been so lucky. Her wrist pain still plagues her when she stays at the keyboard too long. This spring, she was forced to ask her boyfriend to type her senior thesis in linguistics for her.

Davis, who was looking forward to performing with a summer stock theater company, is over the depres- sion he felt when he was told he had to stopplaying. But, he says, "it's hard when you spendso much time doing something then you're forced tostop."

Bhan's symptoms were never diagnosed by aphysician. Davis and Roach were both diagnosedwith tendonitis. The three share symptoms ofdisorders which physicians say are on the rise incomputer users, including students, and others whoperform repetitive tasks involving the wrists andhands.

Comulative trauma disorders (CTDs),characterized by pain, numbness or swelling in thehands, among other symptoms, were once industriessuch as meat and poultry processing, electronicassembly and garment production.

With the increased dependence on computers,however, the prevalence of CTDs and relateddisorders such as tendonitis among those whoperform other repetitive tasks--such as electronicscanning at supermarkets and typing--hasincreased.

Today, firmly ensconced in the world of themicrochip, students should at least begin thinkingabout some dangers that accompany with theincreased capabilities of computers, says Dr.Jeffrey N. Katz, an assistant professor ofmedicine at the Medical School who specializes ininjuries of the hand and wrist.

Workers and their employers in many sectorsseem to be taking notice of CTDs and a relateddisorder known as carpal tunnel syndrome, thoughtto be caused by the same types of motions andcharacterized by many of the same symptoms.

Carpal tunnel a painful disorder which can leadto permanent impairment of the hand and which cancost as much as $30,000 per case to treat,according to the Federal Centers for DiseaseControl's National Institutes for OccupationalSafety and Health (NIOSH). The disorder is causedby increased pressure on the median nerve, whichserves the hands, as it runs within the "tunnel"formed by the carpal bones in the wrist.

In a 1988 study, NIOSH projected the prevalenceof "medically-diagnosed" carpal tunnel syndrome at700,000 cases among the 72 percent of U.S.residents who had worked in the percent 12 months.More recently, officials reported that NIOSHreceived three times many requests for HealthHazard Evaluations of hand and wrist injuries in1992 as they did in 1982.

While the relationship between CTDs andrepetitive wrist movements is still a topic ofcontroversy, doctor say that job tasks involvinghand motions which are repetitious, forceful andperformed continuously without, rest can lead toCTDs and tendonitis, especially when performedwith a bent wrist.

Nancy Curtin, an industrial hygienist with theUniversity's Office of Environmental Health andSafety (EHS), says that with the computer boom,wrist injuries are showing up in situations neveranticipated by experts.

No statistics are kept on student cases of suchinjuries, she says. Although injuries are morecommon among full-time computer users such asdata-entry operators, recent studies have foundthat even those who workless than full days at thecomputer are falling victim to such disorders.