- People with writer s cramp develop tightness in arm muscles and abnormal hand posture when writing, which makes writing difficult or impossible. At present, there is no suitable rating scale to measure the symptoms of or disability associated with writer s cramp. Researchers want to videotape people performing simple writing tasks. They will then compare the performance of people with writer s cramp on these tasks to those of people without writer s cramp. This information will help develop a rating scale to evaluate writer s cramp.