A Cor-Relational Study between Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Questionnaire and Nerve Conduction Study in Computer Operators

Background: Prevalence of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS) is increased because of increased use of computers. Repetitive stress injuries and sustained abnormal posture thought to be mechanisms for CTS in key board users. Nerve Conduction Velocity (NCV) is gold standard electro-diagnostic investigation which also measures severity of CTS. Carpal Tunnel Questionnaire Score (CTQS), a symptom severity based questionnaire is cost effective, less time consuming and easily administrable tool which is commonly used in clinical setup.

Objective: To assess the severity of CTS in long term key board users using CTQS and NCS. To correlate the CTQS severity score with NCS findings (sensory and motor latency; sensory and motor velocity).

Methodology: The cross sectional study was done on 35 healthy long term key board users (>32 hr/wk) with mean age of 32.86±9.28 with no any musculo-skeletal disorders. The sensory and motor NCS of median nerve in dominant extremities of subjects were tested and the values obtained were correlated with CTQS.

Result: A significant positive correlation was seen between the Carpal Tunnel Questionnaire Score (CTQS) and the sensory and motor latency (r=0.817; r=0.659) respectively and significant negative correlation was seen between CTQS and sensory and motor velocity (r= -0.749; r = -0.493) respectively. Conclusion: From the above result, it can be said that Carpal Tunnel Questionnaire Score (CTQS) can be replaced in place of NCS and thereby the severity of the CTS can be assessed.