ESA50 - Reaching & Manual Dexterity

Asbo wrote: Hi

I am drafting out my responses to these questions and have provisionally answered that i don't have a problem in these areas. But I am worried that it may be seen as inconsistent because I've said about the problems with picking up an object and am unable to do it repeatedly etc due to fatigue. Then I thought maybe I should be saying the same for Reaching and Manual Dexterity. When I am fatigued, I can't do anything repeatedly and just have to sleep. Should I reflect this in my responses? I'm worried that if I say 'no' to so many things they won't take my claim seriously, especially knowing their attitude towards Fibromyalgia.

Many thanks.

We cannot advise members what to write in their ESA50s, however, you might want to give some thought to the mechanics of the two descriptors.

The Reaching descriptor is about rasing your arms, this might be a problem because of a mechaincal problem, such as the shoulder or elbow joints locking, but there is also a muscular issue, the arm obviously weighs something and I would be surpsied if this was not more than a one litre carton of liquid.

The manual dexterity test involves quite light objects such as one pound coin or a pen, even the use of a keyboard does not necessarily require the lifting of the arm(s), that is what the wrist support is for, so this is not so much a "physical", but is more concerned with, forgive me I cannot think of another word, dexterity.

Gordon