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[A121]About Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

by Franchis, Fra

When you repeatedly move your fingers in the same pattern for hours on end, the tendons that connect your finger muscles to your wrist bones get irritated and inflamed. In turn, the ligaments that connect your wrist bones swell. The swollen tissues make for very tight accommodations inside the carpal tunnel, the channel deep inside your wrist where your finger tendons and wrist ligaments come together.

Within the narrow confines of that channel, the tissues press on an important and highly sensitive set of nerve fib ers called the median nerve. The median nerve controls sensation and movement in your hand. When the nerve is under pressure, you experience tingling, burning, or numbness in your hand-the classic symptoms of CTS.

Though computers are rightly blamed for the majority of CTS cases, the condition can result from any activity that involves constant, repetitive motion. Even if you're not married to a keyboard all day, you might begin to experience CTS symptoms if you do things like knitting, hammering, playing tennis or racquetball, or playing a musical instrument. CTS is also associated with tasks that deliver a steady vibration to the wrist, such as operating a jackhammer or other power tools. Another cause not commonly known is the repeated flexing of the wrist during sleep.

CTS can be aggravated by health problems that have nothing whatever to do with repetitive motion. For example, people with diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and thyroid problems sometimes develop classic CTS symptoms. Gender plays a role, too: You have a greater risk of developing CTS if you're a woman, because the condition is three times more common among women than among men. Female hormonal fluctuations during the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, and menopause make tissues inside the wrist swell more than usual, putting pressure on the median nerve. If pregnancy is behind the swelling, however, CTS symptoms may vanish after delivery, when hormone levels return to normal.

At first, CTS may affect only the thumb and first three fingers of the hand. (The pinkie is spared because it isn't controlled by the median nerve.) And sometimes it affects only the dominant hand, although more than half of all CTS cases involve both hands.

If you ignore the initial symptoms and continue engaging in a repetitive task, you can end up with constant pain in your hand and arm. In the most severe cases, CTS can permanently damage the hands, making repetitive tasks like keyboarding impossible.

Fortunately, CTS never has to progress to such an advanced stage. With prompt intervention on your part-and a few of the remedies listed below-you can quickly get the upper hand on CTS symptoms.

Carpal tunnel syndrome is a condition that causes tingling, numbness and pain in the hand and fingers. It occurs when the median nerve that runs from the forearm to hand becomes pressed or squeezed at the wrist area. This nerve is what controls the sensations in the thumb, first three fingers (excluding the little finger) and the palm. It also is the nerve that controls impulses in the smaller muscle groups in the hand that allow movement. The carpal tunnel itself is a rigid, narrow channel of ligaments and bone. It lies at the base of the hand, housing most of the median nerve and tendons.

There is usually not just one factor that contributes to carpal tunnel syndrome. Often, carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms are the result of a congenital predisposition. This simply means that the carpal tunnel is smaller in some people than in others. Trauma or injury can also cause carpal tunnel syndrome. A sprain or fracture can cause swelling, thus compressing the median nerve. Rheumatoid arthritis, hypothyroidism, work stress, mechanical problems within the wrist joint, fluid retention, frequent use of vibrating tools and cysts or tumors in the carpal tunnel can all be additional causes of the syndrome. Sometimes, however, there is not identifiable cause.

The best ergonomic computer chair will help prevent many health conditions such as backaches, neck stress and carpal tunnel syndrome. Having a properly adjusted keyboard tray greatly reduces your risks of developing carpal tunnel.

Here are some additional tips that when combined together, can help you to reduce your chances of having to deal with carpal tunnel in the future.

TIP #1 Exercise - Stretching exercises can help prevent carpal tunnel by increasing circulation to the area which can keep the tendons and ligaments from swelling.

TIP #2 Frequent Breaks - Taking frequent breaks will give your body a break. It will break up the activity and keep the tendons and ligaments from becoming inflamed.

TIP #3 Posture - Maintaining good posture and proper wrist position can reduce pressure on the wrist area and prevent inflammation and swelling.

TIP #4 Support - Wearing splints can help keep your wrists straight and in the proper position.

TIP #5 Keep Your Hands Warm - Wear fingerless gloves. This will keep your hands warm and flexible, creating optimum circulation in the hand and wrist area.

TIP #6 Workplace Modifications

1. Tools and tool handles can be redesigned to keep the worker's wrist in a more natural position.

2. Redesign workstations and tasks to be more conducive to natural positioning of the worker's wrists.

3. Rotating jobs and tasks among workers can reduce repetitive activity and give workers a break.

4. Employers can develop programs that adapt conditions and tasks of the workplace environment.

I hope that you found this article useful and that you will now make a concerted effort to make sure that you have good posture, take breaks often, and try to stay in optimal health.

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Both Franchis & Spencer Hunt are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

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