What is Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?
It is the most common neuropathy of the hand. It is the compression of the median nerve at the level of the palmar wrist due to repetitive motion activities or fixed wrist activities such as reading a book or working on a computer.
What are the symptoms of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?
Symptoms are usually described as a tingling or numbing sensation on the index and middle finger followed by the thumb on the palmar aspect of the hand. Nighttime awakenings often occur and is usually the primary complaint of most people. In a more advanced stage, thinning of the muscle mass at the base of the thumb, together with weakness is often described. At later stages, clumsiness, dropping objects or difficulty in fine motion can often be described.
How is Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Diagnosed?
Physical examination with our team of hand surgeons is often enough to diagnose most cases of carpal tunnel syndrome. For equivocal findings, a nerve conduction study may be done to confirm the diagnosis.
How is it treated?
Treatment of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is based on the severity of the disease. It can be divided into surgical and non-surgical.
Non-surgical:
Splinting: Initial management consists of neutral night splinting for 6 weeks with or without anti inflammatory medications.
Steroid Injections: This is adjunct treatment for carpal tunnel syndrome. Often, symptoms will recur, and open treatment will be advised.
Surgical
Our goal for surgery is to release the median nerve from compression. This can be done endoscopically (ECTR) using minimal incisions to hasten recovery time, or open carpal release (OCTR) which removes the offending pathology.
Both surgical treatments can be done as an outpatient case under local anesthesia.
Asian hospital and Medical Center is equipped with a dedicated team of Hand Surgeon specialists that can discuss various treatment methods from conservative splinting to steroid injection to surgical release. To know more please visit Asian Hospital and Medical Center’s Hand Surgery and schedule an appointment with our Hand Specialists.