Assessment 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 can result in 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 a sign of inflammation or stress of the tissues. In this paper, we used statistical analysis to examine the difference in hand and arm temperatures of pianists with pain and pianists without pain related to piano-playing. We found that there is a statistically significant difference in hand temperatures between the two populations, but not in the lower arm and upper arm temperatures.