Home Treatment for Repetitive Stress Injury

At Macworld this week, iListen’s creator MacSpeech announced it has licensed the technology used by the common dictation software for the PC, Dragon Naturally Speaking, to create a new application that can be used on Intel Macs. It’s called Dictate and will be shipping in mid-February. You can find out more details about it at Ars Technica or Tuaw.
I’ve tried using dictation software in the past, especially when my arms were at their worst and merely clicking the mouse caused pain. I never had much luck, but many people swear by it, so maybe it just depends on your voice. The most successful software is Dragon Naturally Speaking; however, it’s only available for PC users.

Macs had a couple programs developed , namely ViaVoice which stopped development several years ago, and iListen, which I’ve not had good results with. But now, us Mac geeks have another option, Dictate. Yay! I’m not sure I’ll upgrade from iListen, since I haven’t had much pain lately. I may do so just out of curiosity, to see how far the technology has come.

My first attempt with dictation software was back in the year 2000 or so, and the results were humorous but not reassuring. I had a PC at that time, used Dragon Naturally Speaking–widely regarded as the best voice recognition software available — and the results were a pure gibberish that I promptly posted to a bulletin board for friends and visitors to laugh at.

My second attempt was more earnest in 2004, when I had daily pain, had seen a couple doctors and was undergoing regular O.T. treatments. I quit my job, worked from home for a while, and tried using iListen to recover, but even though I completed all the training sessions and worked earnestly with it a couple weeks, I couldn’t really get it going. In the end I went back to typing and used other methods of therapy to get back to normal.

I also found that I prefer to type than speak, because I don’t like hearing myself, and listening to myself made me quite self-conscious about what I was saying — and was also distracting! I’d be interested to hear other people’s experiences learning to use dictation software. Were you successful? Was it strange at first, and did you get used to it over time? If you upgrade to Dictate, chime in and let me know how it goes.

Take care and I’ll try to keep updating regularly;) Maybe with some more specific advice on how to help your hands stay happy.

Related posts:

1. Alternative Ergonomic Mice–the Comprehensive Guide
2. Improve Your Mousing Style: How to Click and Point More Comfortably
3. Guide to Non-Mice: Alternative Pointing Devices
4. Fast Tips for RSI Relief
5. What the Ergonomist Can Do For You