Forensic

Forensic has its origins in the Roman, Latin language, and it comes from 'forens', the forum, which is where the law courts were situated. The word had pejorative connotations at that time with overtones of the forum being a public place.

Life Events

In the course of diagnostic interviews for medico-legal purposes, examinations were conducted into the concurrent predicament and health status of one hundred subjects (97 women and 3 men) making claims for 'Repetitive Strain Injury' (RSI). The conclusion reached was that concurrent life events were stressors producing somatized responses. Is necessary to understand the social determinants of the illness to predict its course, and potential for exacerbation or recovery.

Origins of the Concept of RSI, The

The epidemic of arm symptoms started in Australia in the very early nineteen eighties, against a background of concern about occupational health. The formulation of knowledge about RSI did not come from within orthodox medicine, or from research, but from the documents of trade unions and from legal judgements, an example, perhaps, of an epidemic of a juridicogenic rather than iatrogenic illness.

Social Iatrogenesis of RSI, The

The first referenced use of the term Repetitive Strain Injury, was to a typed document of that name called the "approved guide to occupational health" adopted in June of 1982 by the National Health and Medical Research Council. This document described under the label "RSI" a number of otherwise well known arm conditions of various pathologies and suggested that they might be avoided by extensive alteration of work practices. There followed two papers the Medical Journal of Australia which introduced some new ideas into the Australian medical profession. Arm symptoms of obscure origin in a working population were said to be the product of an "injury" caused by the strain of repetitive movement, or in workers who had not moved repetitively, by the static strain of having maintained a posture in the course of work.

The umbrella term "RSI" soon came to be used indiscriminately for any acute pain, cramp, spasm or fatigue, all occupational myalgias, any extended fatigue syndrome, for all organic conditions presenting as arm pain and for the chronic, long term functional disorder otherwise known as writers' cramp, craft palsy or occupation neurosis.

Somatization

The concept of somatization has played an important role in contemporary clinical theory and practice. It is a name that was given to a process which was formerly simply referred to as 'emotional'. Unlike disease, which maintained its structure across national and geographical boundaries, somatization as illness took a shape which was determined by culture which was the vector of beliefs and expectations. In brief, somatization referred to a clinical picture where bodily symptoms were judged, in the light of a 'standard' Western medical theory, to be overly dominant, overly persistent, the subject of abnormal preoccupation or simply without an organic, 'disease', base.