Understanding Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

[Shahid]

This is where we are going to share some facts, causes, symptoms and preventive measures on this complicated health concern.
You are welcome to share your thoughts and also if you have had any personal or friends and family experience with the Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

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What is Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
According to the Wikipedia, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS) is an entrapment median neuropathy, causing paresthesia, pain, numbness, and other symptoms in the distribution of the median nerve due to its compression at the wrist in the carpal tunnel. The pathophysiology is not completely understood but can be considered compression of the median nerve traveling through the carpal tunnel. The National Center for Biotechnology Information and highly cited older literature say the most common cause of CTS is typing. More recent research by Lozano-Calderón has cited genetics as a larger factor than use, and has encouraged caution in ascribing causality.

[Shahid]

According to Wikipedia, Patients with CTS experience numbness, tingling, or burning sensations in the thumb and fingers, in particular the index, middle fingers, and radial half of the ring fingers, which are innervated by the median nerve. Less-specific symptoms may include pain in the wrists or hands and loss of grip strength (both of which are more characteristic of painful conditions such as arthritis). Before the median nerve enters the carpal tunnel it passes first through the thoracic outlet and then the two heads of the pronator teres muscle of the forearm. As a consequence, inflammation, edema, or hypertrophy in the thoracic outlet or the forearm can impinge the median nerve, mimicking the effects of carpal tunnel syndrome, and patients may also report pain in the arm and shoulder.

Numbness and paresthesias in the median nerve distribution are the hallmark neuropathic symptoms (NS) of carpal tunnel entrapment syndrome. Weakness and atrophy of the thenar muscles may occur if the condition remains untreated.

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CTS - Prevention
According to the Wikipedia, a systematic review in 2007 of the published English-language literature assessed the quality and strength of articles addressing causes for carpal tunnel syndrome. The authors applied the Bradford Hill criteria to papers on various biological and occupational factors that have been proposed to have a causative effect. Biological factors such as genetic predisposition and anthropometrics had significantly stronger causal association with carpal tunnel syndrome than occupational/environmental factors such as repetitive hand use and stressful manual work. This suggests that carpal tunnel syndrome might not be preventable simply by avoiding certain activities or types of work/activities.

Some of the suggested healthy habits to prevent CTS may include:
- avoiding repetitive stress
- work modification through use of ergonomic equipment (wrist rest, mouse pad)
- taking proper breaks
- using keyboard alternatives (digital pen, voice recognition, and dictation), and
- employing early treatments such as taking turmeric (anti-inflammatory), omega-3 fatty acids, and B vitamins

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Because more and more people use computers nowadays, the risk of getting CTS in increasing as well. Not only that, lack of knowledge of the causes and symptoms behind CTS also contributes to the rising factor. In third world countries, ergonomic equipment are only for the high end companies and rich people, which leaves the rest of the computer operator workforce (which by the way, accounts for a greater majority of computer users) at risk at getting CTS.

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Want to know if you have Carpal Tunnel Syndrome? Here's a video that will show you how: http://video.answers.com/how-to-tell...rome-287353871