What Is Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, is a condition that causes pain, numbness, weakness and tingling sensation in the hand up towards the arm. The condition occurs when one of the nerves at the hand, which is median nerve is compressed and cause pressure towards the nerve.
The median nerve runs from your arm, goes through the passage in your wrist called carpal tunnel which ends in your hand. Usually, people with feel the symptoms from the thumb and all fingers except the pinky since median nerves runs controls the movement and feelings of the thumb and all fingers except the pinky.
What Symptoms Would You Experienced?
Symptoms of carpal tunnel include:
- Burning, tingling or numbness in your palm and thumb, or your index and middle fingers, which usually worsen at night
- Weakness in your hand and difficulty holding something
- Shock-like feeling that moves into your fingers
- Tingling that moves up into your arm especially when you are holding something with your wrist bend such as driving or reading a book
What Cause Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?what Cause Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?
People often unsure what cause carpal tunnel syndrome on their hand. It can be due to:
- Repetitive movement, such as typing, hammering, prolonged vibration
- Conditions, such as hypothyroidism, obesity, rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes
- Pregnancy
- Older age
How Is Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Treated?
Carpal tunnel syndrome can be treated in two ways: Non-surgical or with surgical.
- Non-surgical: Wearing splint at night, taking NSAIDS such as ibuprofen, cortisone injection, physical therapy.
- Surgical: When carpal tunnel syndrome does not respond to non-surgical treatment or has already severe. The purpose is to increase the size of tunnel in order to reduce the pressure on the nerves.
How Physiotherapy Help with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?
Physiotherapist may advice you to wear a resting splint to reduce the occurring of symptoms at night, or a working splint if the symptoms occur with activity. Apart from that, therapist will teach you simple exercise such as:
- Stretching exercise (wrist flexion and extension)
- Nerve gliding exercise
- Hand strengthening exercise such as hand squeeze
