Active clinical trials for "Carpal Tunnel Syndrome"

Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is the most common nerve compression disease and the most expensive upper-extremity work-related musculoskeletal disorder, affecting approximately 10 million people in the US. To understand the clear etiology and mechanism of carpal tunnel syndrome, the measurement of median nerve intraneural blood flow needs to be further scrutinized as the common fluctuating physiological conditions and functional hand activities might contribute to the fluctuation of the measurement and serve as measurement error. This study aims to examine how intraneural blood flow within the median nerve is affected by physiological factors (i.e., body temperature and blood pressure) and functional hand activities (i.e., typing, using a mouse, and cooking).

To objectively and subjectively assess two modes of commonly employed rehabilitation and confirm a superior method to treat patients following carpal tunnel release. One of the problems following carpal tunnel release (CTR) for carpal tunnel syndrome, and all hand surgeries, is the debilitation in the postoperative period. This relates to muscle atrophy and joint stiffness due to immobilization or relative inactivity in the postoperative period. Specifically, patients suffer increased days off from work, lost wages, and difficulties with activities of daily living affecting the patient and society at large. CTR is a very common procedure in hand surgery making it easy to study and important to optimize the postoperative care.

The purpose of our study is to evaluate the effectiveness of the home exercise program in patients who develop Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS).

Patients with common hand conditions will be randomized to one of two groups- one will receive a question prompt list, the other will receive a list of 3 questions

Sonographic Assessment of The Median Nerve in Carpal Tunnel Syndrome to assess the surgical importance and added value of superficial ultrasonography in assessment of the median nerve in CTS.

In this study, the effects of local block vs non block will be assessed with respect to postoperative outcomes (such as pain score, and recovery profiles) in outpatients after hand surgery.

Researchers at Towson University are conducting a study of computer password behaviors among users who have difficulty using their hands and arms (e.g., individuals with carpal tunnel syndrome, high level spinal cord injuries, etc.). Volunteers are needed to take a short 5-10 minute online survey. The survey is completely confidential and anonymous. If you would like to participate, please visit the URL below. Thank you. http://pages.towson.edu/jdarcy/securitysurvey.htm

Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is the most common nerve compression disorder in the upper extremity. Therapy for carpal tunnel syndrome includes physical and occupational therapy, the use of splints and other local measures, and corticosteroid injection into the carpal tunnel. When these measures fail, open surgical release is considered the next step. Although the main disadvantage of corticosteroid injection is that symptoms are often short-lived relief and partial relief, it may not provide a permanent solution, corticosteroid injections are chosen because of lower level of invasiveness, faster recovery, and ease of the technique. Diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DTI) reveals tissue microstructure based on random movements of water molecules. The measured diffusion-weighted images are further analyzed for parameter images that describe different characteristics of diffusion: apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) is an absolute measure of the strength of diffusion, and fractional anisotropy (FA) describes the asymmetry of the diffusion direction due to tissue structures. Because the axonal cell membrane and the myelin sheath in nerve fibers prevent diffusion in the direction which is perpendicular to their fascicles, resulting in the isotropy of the diffusion of water molecules being lost. DTI is the only method which can give an indirect view of the microstructure of nervous tissue in addition to the pathway of the fibers. DTI has been applied to study peripheral nerves, to demonstrate the feasibility of the method and to study nerve entrapment in carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). The previous studies have demonstrated a decrease in FA in patients with CTS compared to healthy volunteers. The DTI parameters of the median nerve have revealed significant increase of FA and decrease in ADC with complete symptom relief 6 months after carpal tunnel release. However, Hiltunen et al. have demonstrated a significant decrease in ADC but no alter in FA in patients received open carpal tunnel release 1 year later and felt complete symptoms relief. By means of open carpal tunnel release, follow-up recordings were made at least 6 months after the operation to ensure time for post-operative tissue recovery. As a result, the investigators still do not understand the relevance between the parameters of DTI to symptoms relief in CTS patients receiving conservative treatment. Different from carpal tunnel release, steroid injections are popular technique for CTS treatment and are believed to reduce perineural inflammation or soft tissue swelling, and may stabilize the neural membrane, thus limiting the ephaptic transmission in ischemic nerve fibers which causes symptoms. Corticosteroid injections can provide a rapid symptom relief at 2 weeks follow up. However, there is no report addressing the relation of functional change of median nerve at several anatomic locations to the symptom relief of CTS. Here the investigators monitored, by means of DTI, median nerve integrity in CTS patients before and after corticosteroid injection. This information may help to explain the hypothesis regarding the effect of corticosteroid to the median nerve, to identify which anatomic location of median nerve relevant to the symptom relief of CTS after corticosteroid injection, and be useful for the clinical follow-up of patients with nerve entrapments following conservative treatment.

Carpal tunnel syndrome is the most expensive upper extremity work-related musculoskeletal disorder, impacting 10 million people annually and costing employers up to $113,695 per incident. There is currently no established method to detect this disorder prior to the onset of symptoms and nerve damage. Preliminary research suggests that sonography-a relatively inexpensive, widely available, increasingly portable technology-can provide a non-invasive and pain-free method of early detection that could reduce incidence, improve targeted interventions and ultimately reduce costs. The primary aims of this study are to establish predictive validity of a novel method for early detection using sonographic imaging and to identify task components of intensive functional hand activity associated with morphologic changes.

This study aims for a better understanding of the pathophysiological mechanisms of the complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS). This will be done by testing the quantitative sensory testing, the remote ischemic conditioning, the conditioned pain modulation (CPM) and the analysis of the heart-rate variability in patients with CRPS and a control-group. We hypothesize decreased conditioned pain modulation, less effects of remote ischemic conditioning and an affection of the heart-rate variability in patients with CPRS.