The Correlations among Subjective, Physical, and Electrophysiological Findings in Patients with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Abstract

Background and Objectives: Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is the most common entrapment neuropathy in upper extremity in which the median nerve is compressed in the wrist and assessed based on subjective, physical, and electrophysiological findings. The objective of this study was to determine the correlation among subjective, physical examination, and electrophysiological studies. Materials and Methods: Twenty five patients with CTS (totally 40 hands) from mild to moderate severity were recruited. Subjective (symptom severity scale, functional status scale, and visual analog scale), physical examination (Phalen’s test and median nerve tension test), and electrophysiological (median nerve distal sensory and motor latency) studies were performed for all subjects. Results: Higher intra-correlation was found among subjective findings than electrophysiological parameters. The inter-correlation between subjective and median nerve tension test ranged from low to moderate. Also, a low intra-correlation was found between electrophysiological findings. Furthermore, there was no significant correlation between the subjective and electrophysiological studies. Similar result was found between the median nerve tension test and the electrophysiological studies. Conclusion: Each aspect of the examination of the patients with CTS provides specific information of the diseases and cannot be replaced by one another. Therefore, it appears that any improvement in subjective and/or physical findings does not necessarily lead to an improvement in electrophysiological studies in median nerve in patients with CTS.