Introduction Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is a painful repetitive motion injury in the wrist that can develop in one or both hands. The syndrome starts as a numbness in the palm and spreads to the fingers that are innervate by the median nerve. If the condition worsens, pain can replace the numbness and spread to the elbows and shoulders, effecting your activities of daily living. Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is increasingly reported every year and tends to effects women more then men due to pregnancy. Thankfully, it has many different treatment plans that can cure or help decrease the pain in the afflicted extremities. This is a great relief and interest to many people who have developed this syndrome. (1)
Etiology
The cause of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
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For instance, other inflammatory condition like rheumatoid arthritis, gout, and pseudo-gout. As well as metabolic conditions like hypothyroidism, diabetes mellitus and acromegaly. The list can go on. (1-2)
Pathophysiology
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, in regards to its pathophysiology is simple by nature, but knowing the anatomy of this problem is key. The carpal tunnel is located on the anterior side of both wrists. The length extends from the distal wrist skin crease and up 3cm towards the elbow, with the width under one inch. The boundaries consist of three sides of carpal bone, the posterior and both lateral sides, and a fibrous tissue called the flexor retinaculum on the anterior side. The flexor retinaculum is attached to the pisiform and hamate carpal bone on the medial side of the wrist and stretched across towards the scaphoid and trapezium carpal bone on the lateral side, forming an arch. Inside the tunnel is the medial nerve and nine extrinsic flexor muscle tendons: the flexor digitorum profundus, the flexor digitorum superficialis and the flexor pollicis
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Wrist orthotics is based off of the theory that CTS symptoms would improve with rest and relaxation of the muscles. If worn at night with little repetitive movement during the day, patient have the chance to lessen their carpal tunnel pain. Studies have show that wearing a wrist othotic at night for 12 weeks can 1) improve median motor action potential, 2) shorten nerve latency and 3) increase median sensory velocity. However, it make no significant difference with your performance with functional activities. After the six week mark, a wrist orthosis can alleviate the pressure and promote regeneration of the median nerve.
It's function is to hold the tendons in position. It's dysfunction can cause is tenosynovitis and carpal tunnel syndrome.
Patient is a 57-year-old male fuel tank driver who sustained cumulative trauma on 2/7/2004 due to repetitive movement caused by delivering fuel. As per QME dated 1/25/14, the patient has numbness in the fingers and the patient is diagnoses that he has carpal tunnel syndrome. The left wrist had undergone carpal tunnel surgery; however, he gets numbness from the wrist up into his forearm and numbness in the fingertips. It was also noted that on 12/5/13, the patient complains of shoulder pain bilaterally at 7/10. It is constant and goes into noth arms, along with weakness with numbness in the hands, decreased ability to perform activities of daily living, and impared grip. The pain in the bilateral shoulders is constant and aching with intermittent
Based on the progress report dated 10/07/16, the patient presents for evaluation of carpal tunnel syndrome on the right shoulder.
DOI: 9/30/2014. Patient is a 28-year-old female research assistant who alleges pain and weakness in her hands/wrist as a result of repetitive scooping dirt from soil barrels. As per OMNI entry, the patient was diagnosed with cervicobrachial syndrome (diffuse), right carpal tunnel syndrome and insomnia. She is status post endoscopic carpal tunnel release (CTR) on 09/24/2015 for the right and on 06/02/2015 for the left side.
Electromyography report dated 01/05/2016 (no official report) revealed mild carpal tunnel syndrome on the right and moderate on the left.
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Cubital tunnel syndrome is a condition that affects the ulnar nerve in the arm. The ulnar nerve runs along the medial portion of the arm, behind the medial epicondyle of the humerus, and down into the hand where it innervates the fifth digit and the medial half of the fourth digit, as well as controlling most of the little muscles for fine movement in the hand and larger muscles in the forearm used for grip strength (The American Center for Spine and Neurosurgery [ACSN], 2015). The ulnar nerve can become compressed in several locations as it travels down the arm from the neck, such as beneath the collarbone, at the elbow, or at the wrist. When this compression occurs at the elbow, is referred to as cubital tunnel syndrome. The ulnar nerve at the elbow is commonly referred to as your “funny bone”, but those who have had the pleasure of hitting it know that it is not funny.
Some of the injuries that can occur in the hand are Cubital Tunnel Syndrome and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome along with many more. Cubital Tunnel Syndrome causes pain or numbness in the ring and little fingers, but could also go to the arm (Types of RSI, 2010). Occurs when the ulnar nerve is pinched along the elbow’s edge (“funny bone”), and has tingling or painful feeling (Types of RSI, 2010). Cubital Tunnel Syndrome can be treated by avoiding putting pressure on the “funny bone” (Types of RSI, 2010). Cubital could lead to surgery if the nerve needs to be relieved. Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is similar to Cubital but occurs in the three first fingers. A major nerve is compressed which passes over the carpal bones through the front of the wrist (ASSH, 2015). When the nerve is compressed it causes painful, tingling and numbness in the first three fingers (ASSH, 2015). Carpal Tunnel Syndrome can be treated without surgery by changing the patterns of hand use and/or wearing wrist splints at night (ASSH, 2015). If severe then surgery can take place to make the nerve have more
Carpal tunnel syndrome causes pain in your wrist because the nerve is irritated from inflamed tendons. This often comes about due to a repetitive motion you make during work. While stopping the motion and rest might help you heal faster, that's difficult to do when your condition is caused by your job. Therefore you need to find effective treatment, and unfortunately, that is often tricky with this painful condition. Even surgery isn't always a permanent solution. One treatment to consider is chiropractic care. Here's a look at some treatments you chiropractor might recommend to help with carpal tunnel syndrome.
Treatment options range from non-invasive to invasive. While both are effective, we advise seeking non-invasive treatments first. Dependent upon the severity, some patients may be advised to rest their affected arm or wear a brace or splint. This will limit the hand’s mobility with the goal of helping the wrist and tendons to recover. Another treatment option is to receive chiropractic care, which will include a gentle manipulation of the wrist, elbow, and cervical spine by your Chiropractor. With regular visit, this form of treatment shows positive results in managing and curing the symptoms of Carpal Tunnel. More invasive treatments include surgery or steroid shots. Of all the treatment options, chiropractic care is highly effective and not as invasive as other options may
Background: The forearm is the most common site for compartment syndrome in the upper extremity. The compartments of the forearm include the volar (anterior or flexor), and the dorsal (posterior or exterior). Both bone forearm fractures and distal radius fractures are common initial injuries that lead to acute forearm compartment syndrome. The flexor digitorum profundus and flexor pollicis longus are among the most severely affected muscles because of their deep location, closest to the bone.
An article by Aslani et al., “Comparison of carpal tunnel release with three different techniques” compared the open release, endoscopic release and mid-palmar release. It was a clinical trial study that was done over a period of one year on patients who were surgical candidates for carpal tunnel syndrome (Aslani et al., 2012). Patients were diagnosed based on clinical symptoms and electro-diagnostic studies (Aslani et al., 2012). The clinical diagnosis was made based on the presence of three or more of the following: history of recurrent or persistence paresthesias in the median nerve distribution, nocturnal awaking with paresthesia, worsening of symptoms with any hand activity, positive Tinel’s and Phalen’s sign on physical exam (Aslani et al., 2012). Total of 105 patients were diagnosed and were studied over a course of one year (Aslani et al., 2012). Patients who entered the study had not responded to non-surgical treatments for 6 months (Aslani et al., 2012).
Carpal tunnel syndrome is a syndrome that is caused from pressure on the median nerve in your wrist. It can cause numbness, tingling, and other symptoms in your hand or arm. One of the symptoms that you may have carpal tunnel syndrome is that you may have frequent burning, tingling, or even itching in the palm of your hand and fingers, including in your thumb, index, and middle fingers. Sometimes the symptoms may appear in either one or both of your hands during the night, this is because some people might sleep with flexed wrists.
Introduction The scaphoid bone also known as the naviculair bone, is the second largest carpal bone and was so named from the Greek word scaphe meaning boat, because of its shape resemblance a boat. It has three named regions, including the proximal pole, the distal pole (tubercle), and the waist, which separates the two poles. Over 80%of the bone is covered with articular cartilage. It articulates with the distal radius, lunate, trapezium, trapezoid en the capitate and plays a significant role in the wrist joint. (1o)
A very strong ligament called the transverse carpal ligament connects the arch of bones, which makes a complete “tunnel”. The transverse carpal ligament is a heavy band of fibers which runs between the hamate and pisiform medially to the scaphoid and trapezium laterally, and forms a fibrous sheath which contains the carpal tunnel. These bones and this ligament form a circle Carpal Tunnel Syndrome -5- from which tendons and major nerves travel. This complete circle is called the Carpal Tunnel, hence the name of this disease “Carpal Tunnel Syndrome”.