If You Were Diagnosed With Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, PT Can Help!

If You Were Diagnosed With Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, PT Can Help!

Physical Therapy can help treat your carpal tunnel symptoms. Surgery isn’t always indicated or necessary.

A study from Spain reported that Physical Therapy that includes Manual Therapy fares just as well as surgery in the long term. After 4 years, both manual therapy and surgical groups had similar outcomes in pain scores. The data they tracked was in regards to pain, function, and self-perceived improvement, and only included women.

The manual therapy provided in physical therapy went beyond localized approaches and included soft tissue mobilizations and other techniques in the entire upper extremity. The treatment included nerve glides (check tomorrow’s blog for info on nerve glides) and desensitization maneuvers of the central nervous system.

—Korey Pieper, DPT, OCS

References:

Manual Therapy Versus Surgery for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: 4-Year Follow-Up From a Randomized Controlled Trial. Fernández-de-Las-Peñas C. Physical therapy [Phys Ther] 2020 Oct 30; Vol. 100 (11), pp. 1987-1996.