In recent years, India's domestic IT industry has developed rapidly, and a lot of IT companies in Bangalore were even called "India's Silicon Valley." The booming outsourcing industry, India become a major driving force of economic development, but also to a large number of young people entering the IT industry in India work, their own careers. At the same time, however, many younger workers because of the long time working in front of the computers, the emergence of various physical and psychological diseases or more seriously, could not continue to work.
Sharp rise in the number of young people seeking treatment
Lakaishen Gupta New is senior adviser of the Delhi Yinduoluopuluoshitai internal medicine hospital, he often need to receive young IT practitioners, most of these people and only 20 years old, but they were suffering from a variety of diseases, The backache, and some neck pain, and some blurred vision, but most of the hand or pain.
These young workers in the IT industry sitting in front of a computer for 10 hours every day, the main task is telephony conversation with the western people thousands of kilometers away through the computer. They are India outsourcing services revolution grass-roots forces; some people speak American English with the American Telephone and Telegraph Company users and in Maryland; some people are waiting for Dell computer users to provide advisory services.
In India, about 1.6 million people engaged in vocational is to provide customers the West telephone counseling service. 60 per cent of the population living in rural areas, the daily income is less than two US dollars circumstances, these kinds of work in the information technology sector of Indian state became the main pillars of economic development, that is make them enable India to become the world's first economic development rate.
However, with making a great contribution to the country economy, this IT industry staffs are under great pressure at the same time, leading to double suffering from physical and mental diseases. They are often day and night upside down in the middle of the night work, when the others are sleeping. Many of them also do not eat nutrition, and lack of exercises, and also because of the need to work long hours sitting in front of the computers.
For these reasons, most people suffered from an entitled "repeated injury tension¡± disease, which some people in the back and neck nerve injury, some people in mental illness. As the long time sitting in one place, stare at the computer screen and talk with the customer contact, there are many people having symptoms of diabetes and obesity.
"These people have spent a long time every day sitting in front of a computer, staring at a computer, talking to the people in other countries by a computer, so they will definitely suffer from this kind of disease," said Gupta, "When it comes to the number of young people coming in for treatment showed a steady upward trend. If these people work in this industry 1 or 2 years, as will the emergence of the disease."
Pain is unbearable to impact life
Lafukaer Nixin is a typical example. He is a software designer in Hewlett-Packard of India "Silicon Valley" Bangalore; his work is sitting in front of the computer six days per week. After a few years of such work, Lafukaer suffered from the "repeated injury of tension", and with a very serious deterioration, he has been unable to work. He complained: " Now I am the only Fighting words, only my name and password."
"First, my hands began paralysis often, forearm pain was always abnormal," Lafukaer talked the severity of his illnesses, "It began showing signs of the shoulder problems, often through the night, Toru pain, the pain made me wake up, and the pain medicine is not effective. "
Lafukaer even feels too painful to drive, and had to ask for three months of leave. ¡°The people numb feeling very annoying symptoms, you should always bear this torture, and to constantly massage." To cure their disease, found the Bangalore test Lafukaer "RECOUP" nervous musculoskeletal rehabilitation centres ? Shaalan Dimoke doctor for his treatment.
Shaalan perhaps understand more than anyone else about the occupational diseases a worker in the IT industry has. In the past eight years, he has been dedicated to the research about occupational diseases of IT workers, covering IT department of software companies and call centers. Shaalan has investigated and studied nearly 30,000 IT workers and found that 75 percent of them are suffering from certain diseases. This figure is 15 percentages higher than the 60 percent of western countries.
Psychological impact of the disease
Such diseases would not be stay at physiological level, but will "spread" to psychological level. Kaluna Bashikaer, a psychologist directing the to1help.net site, which is specifically designed for IT companies and workers providing health advisory services. She pointed out that the health status of IT workers has affected their families.
Bashikaer said that his clients are often busy with work and do not have time to go home, or have problem in getting regular rests, resulting in little time to getting along with their children. Couples both of whom are IT workers are often unable to have time to see each other regularly because of their respectively tight schedules.
"Their free time is woefully inadequate and did not have time to be with their families," Bashikaer said, "when others sleep, they have works to do. Under such circumstances, they often appear to be more impulsive, emotional, easy to get offended, and in turn affect relations with others.¡± Every day nearly 100 people will contact Bashikaer about their mental tension, depression and other issues.
In India, most young people live with their parents till marriage and then move out to live on their own. For many young IT workers, they are forced to move out, usually far from families and friends. For most of them it is the first time to left home and live on their own.
Bashikaer said: "These young workers often are not accustomed to the freedom derived from their way of life as they lack the custody of their parents compared with the young people from ordinary families in India." Bashikaer said that some of them can not take care of their own daily meals, some of them have no sense of security, thus attempting to quit, but "many people can not withdraw, because they are the main source of income for the living of the home."
Companies attempt to help
In early 2001, health advice websites are rarely seen besides the to1help.net. Today, more and more companies began to notice the occupational diseases of their staffs and began trying to provide helps, but currently in India there has no relevant mandatory regulations.
Shaalan said that in the IT industry, "there are good companies and bad companies." Take Hewlett-Packard and Texas Instruments for example, the two companies allow Shaalan and his colleagues to regularly examine whether the staffs have the correct sitting position, and told them matters they should pay attention to.
Shaalan said, a good company will employ professional health coaches and live yoga coaches to urge company staffs to do exercises, and formulate mandatory requirements for staff to have a short break to relax the body and eyes every 30 to 45 minutes of work.
But bad companies are often "trying to find a shortcut," Shaalan said, these companies "casually looking for a doctor even those with no license or do not understand human engineering, in order to get a proof that they provide health consulting services for their staffs. Even if there are staffs complaining about their health problems, the company will only show the proof and then pass the responsibility to their employees. "A Dell's staff complained that the company had not provided any health advice service for staff.
Disease and therapy
Shaalan explained that the occupational diseases IT industry often experience three stages. In the first phase, the disease will disappear after work, in the second stage, the disease will disappear after a good rest for one night, and in the third stage, the disease often is not so easy to go away.
Those who came to Shaalan seeking treatment often have been in the third phase.¡± Some patients were unable to work or even unable to use their hands, which often led to the hand injury, swelling and stiffness," Shaalan said, "their day-to-day lives may therefore be seriously affected."
For anyone seeking medical help, their treatment process can be divided into three steps. First, the patients¡¯ symptoms of muscle tension and spasm can be relieved by in-depth tissue massage, trigger point release and tensile movement. Then, the doctor will guide the patients to do stretch exercises, yoga or Alexander Technique (a training method to coordinate and rehabilitate physical functions and psychological functions). In this way, the joints will become more flexible.
Finally, doctors will tell the patients how to relax the muscles during work time by recommending a combination of stretching exercises and the high-tech electro diagnosis. Long-term treatments include tai chi, as well as other more intensified strength training. However, doctors and patients generally believe that the best method of treatment is prevention - to avoid repeating the same movement, to avoid the situation when you could not sleep, and reduce the consumption of food with high fat.
