One Ashford Hospital
Carpal Tunnel
Syndrome at home
and in the workplace
Mr Chris James, Consultant Orthopaedic Hand and Wrist Surgeon at One
Ashford Hospital explains more on Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, along with
treatment options available at the hospital.
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS) is extremely
common and affects up to 10% of the UK adult
population.
Patients may have one or more of the symptoms
above and these are often present during simple
activities during the day such as reading, driving
and cooking. Patients will often complain of
increasing symptoms at night, requiring them to
sleep with their hand under a pillow, or hang the
arm down.
It usually presents with a mixture of the following
symptoms:
• Numbness
• Aching
How is it treated?
• Tingling
CTS is usually a clinical diagnosis and can be
gained via assessment by an experienced
clinician. There are tests available (nerve
conduction studies) when the diagnosis is
unclear. Initial treatment consists of simple
measures such as:
• Weakness of the hand and fingers
This is due to the compression of a nerve (median
nerve) at the wrist. This compression is mainly
caused by a thickening of a ligament within the
hand.
What causes CTS?
• Activity modification
In the majority of cases the exact cause of CTS is
unknown, but it may be associated with female
gender, pregnancy, increasing age, injury to the
wrist and disorders such as diabetes and arthritis.
A second group of patients can present with
workplace associated CTS. This can be caused
through jobs that require repetitive motion of the
wrist such as typing, driving and working with
tools. These activities cause the wrist to be held
in a flexed position which increases the pressure
on the nerve which induces the symptoms.
• Painkillers
• Wrist splints
• Steroid injections
If these fail to be of significant benefit then
surgery is the next step.
Carpal Tunnel Decompression is one of the
commonest orthopaedic operations and has
excellent success rates. The surgery is performed
under local anaesthetic (wide awake surgery) via
a small incision in the palm.
One Ashford Hospital
G
T
William Harvey
Hospital Ashford
H
A
20
70
Kennington Road, Ashford TN24 0YS
Telephone: 01233 885777
J10
www.oneashfordhospital.co.uk
20
Ashford
town centre
92
A2
M
20
Tesco
HY
TH
E
RO
AD
[email protected]