Evalution of piano-related injuries using infrared imaging

Playing the piano is a repetitive task that involves the use of the hands and the arms. Pain related to piano-playing is the result of extending the tissues and ligaments of the hands and arms beyond their mechanical tolerance. Infrared imaging records the skin temperature and produces a thermal map of the imaged body part; small variations in the skin temperature could be the sign of inflammation or stress on the tissues. In this thesis we correlated heat to pain related to piano playing; we used statistical analysis to examine the difference in heat temperature between pianists with pain related to piano-playing and pianists without pain related to piano-playing. We found that there is a statistically significant difference in hand temperature between the two populations. In addition, pianists with pain have higher hand temperatures relative to their arms. These findings may lead to earlier detection and easier diagnosis of repetitive stress injuries.