Authors (including presenting author) :
Yu KH(1), Cheng SY(1), Pang WM(1), Chan CCW(1)
Affiliation :
(1)Occupational Therapy Department, Kwong Wah Hospital
Introduction :
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS) can affect patients in both symptomatic and functional aspects. There is limited evidence on the treatment effectiveness by conservative Occupational Therapy treatment program for patients with different Nerve Conduction Velocity (NCV) test results in terms of symptomatic and functional aspects.
Objectives :
To investigate the effectiveness of an Occupational Therapy service of providing resting splint and education program on patients with NCV test result in terms of symptomatic and functional improvement.
Methodology :
In this retrospective study, we reviewed the results of patients with NCV test done who received resting splint and education program in Occupational Therapy Department of Kwong Wah Hospital from Feb to Aug 2020. A total number of 19 patients were recruited. There were 14 patients with positive NCV result (group 1) and 5 patients with negative NCV result (group 2). The carpal tunnel syndrome management program consists of initial assessment session, nocturnal wrist splintage fabrication and an education program with ergonomic advices, energy conservation techniques and home exercise. The Hong Kong Chinese version of the Brigham and Woman’s Hospital CTS questionnaire (CTSQ-C) which included symptom severity score and functional status score was used as the outcome measure to evaluate the effectiveness among 2 groups. Non-parametric Wilcoxon signed ranks test was used for statistical analysis.
Result & Outcome :
It showed that after our treatment program, there is statistically significant improvement in group 1 in averaged mean symptoms scores, which decreased from 2.64 ± 0.69 to 2.09 ± 0.53 (p=0.005, Z=-2.805), while averaged mean functional status score decreased from 2.10 ± 0.91 to 1.95 ± 0.67 (p=0.155, Z=-1.423). For group 2, their averaged mean symptoms scores decreased from 2.35 ± 0.19 to 1.60 ± 0.70 (p=0.068, Z=-1.826) while averaged mean functional status score decreased from 1.42 ± 0.29 to 1.14 ± 0.22 (p=0.109, Z=-1.604).
The findings of this study shows our CTS treatment program using nocturnal wrist splint and educations of ergonomic advices, energy conservation techniques and home exercise can improve symptoms of patients in CTS patients with positive NCV result. Those with negative NCV result were not responsive to our treatment program in terms of CTSQ-C score. Establishing a CTS treatment program with more functional and occupational components could be considered as future direction.
