What is HAVs

What is hand-arm vibration?

Hand-arm vibration or HAV is exactly what it sounds like – it is a vibration that affects your hands and arms.

Hand-arm vibration is vibration transmitted into workers’ hands and arms. This can come from the use of hand-held power tools (such as grinders or road breakers), hand-guided equipment (such as powered lawnmowers or pedestrian controlled floor saws), or by holding materials being worked by hand-fed machines (such as pedestal grinders or forge hammers)

The effects of regular use of vibrating tools build up over time, It may not be something someone notices immediately although Hand-arm vibration syndrome may not sound particularly serious, it is – it can become severely disabling if people ignore the symptoms and carry on.

It’s progressive and irreversible but it is PREVENTABLE!

Around 2 million workers in the UK are at risk of hand-arm vibration syndrome.
In fact it may affect as many as 1 in 10 people who regularly use vibrating tools
Vibration can lead to two main health problems
- HAVs formally known as vibration white finger (VWF) or dead finger
- Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS)

What causes hand-arm vibration?

Hand-arm Vibration Syndrome is caused when the small nerves and blood vessels in the fingers are regularly, continually or repeatedly shaken or buffeted.

The vibrations cause the blood vessels to constrict which cuts off the blood supply to the nerves in the fingers.

It’s these nerves that carry messages to the brain – they carry messages about what they can feel – the textures of materials, the temperature – they tell you if something is hot or cold and they enable you to do fine work, pick up and manipulate small objects. If this is repeated often enough these small nerves and blood vessels become damaged and gradually lose some of their function and fingers appear to become numb. This can be very gradual.

Hav's happens in three stages.

In the first stage, the blood vessels and nerves are affected.

People may have a tingling sensation, like pins and needles, and they might notice a white tinge on their fingers.

Fingers turn white as the damaged blood vessels narrow.
To start with it may be just the tips of the fingers that go white.
As it becomes more severe the whole finger from the tip to the knuckle may be affected and the feeling may be lost.

The second stage further affects blood vessels and causes loss of circulation.

Fingers may become paler and go white when exposed to the cold.
They then go bright red and tingle or throb painfully as they warm up and the circulation comes back.
If it gets really bad the blood circulation may not return and the fingers go a noticeable blue-black colour - this is because the oxygen in the blood vessels has been exhausted.

The third stage affects nerves and muscles.

fingers become clumsy. the ability to feel things or use fingers for fine work is affected. for example, picking up small objects or completing simple tasks that require manipulation of small objects, such as picking up something small like a coin or a screw or nail, or doing up a button or tying a shoelace.

Fingers feel numb and lose the sense of touch and temperature. People may notice joint pain and stiffness in the hand and arm.

People may lose some strength or grip because of the damage to nerves and muscles.

Symptoms may disappear after a short time in the beginning, but continued exposure over weeks, months, and years will mean that symptoms can worsen and the numbness in fingers and hands could become permanent - People will no longer be able to feel anything you touch.

It’s important to understand that although it’s the exposure to the vibration that causes and worsens HAVS,

the symptoms can be triggered by exposure to wet or cold conditions or even simply by touching a cold object!

It could happen when getting something out of the freezer, touching the cold handle of a tool, if someone's hands are in cold water or simply being outside on a cold morning.

Exposure to vibration has made the hands over-sensitive to cold. Warmth helps to increase blood circulation. It does this by opening up blood vessels and this supplies oxygen and nutrients to reduce pain in joints and relax muscles, ligaments, and tendons. So keeping hands warm is important to avoid triggering the symptoms of HAVS.

So, you need to look out for:

Tingling and numbness,
Loss of feeling in the tips of fingers,
Loss of strength in hands,
In cold weather, the tips of fingers going white, then red and painful as circulation comes back,
And the difficulty in picking up small objects.

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Carpal Tunnel

There is a narrow tube or tunnel running from the wrist to the hand.

This is the carpal tunnel, and it carries tendons that control movement in the hand and a nerve that carries feeling from the thumb and fingers.

If any of the tendons swell up, pressure is put on the nerve, squashing it and stopping it from sending messages to the brain. Vibration is one of the things that can cause the tendons to swell up.

This causes tingling, pain, numbness, and weakness in parts of the hand and fingers.

This is Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

It is not usually something that happens quickly and occasional exposure is unlikely to affect your health.

It can take about 10 years of regularly using vibrating tools for it to develop.

Symptoms become worse the longer people are exposed to vibration, but the rate of deterioration varies from person to person. If the exposure to vibration stops, the deterioration usually stops, but nerve damage cannot be repaired. However reducing exposure to vibration or stopping it completely before it has reached the advanced stage associated with disability, may well improve the effects on blood circulation. If there is any improvement it will be slow. if people are a smoker the recovery may well take longer.

This is because smoking constricts blood vessels which decreases blood flow to the fingertips.

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