Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) and exposure to vibration, repetitive wrist movements, and heavy manual work: a case-referent study.

Abstract

Possible connections between carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) and exposure to vibrating handheld tools, repetitive wrist movements, and heavy manual work were examined in a case-referent study. 43 ment of the conduction velocities in the median nerve at the wrist level. Patients on whom the transverse carpal ligament was divided because ofpost-traumatic nerve compression were excluded from the study. The remaining 38 patients constituted the cases in this study.For each case, two referents were drawn from among other surgical cases (hospital referents) and two further referents from the general population register and the telephone directory, respectively (population referents). All referents were matched for sex (only men were included), age (± 3 years), and the hospital referents also for year of operation (±3 years).The hospital referents were collected from the medical register at the Southern Hospital. During 1975-80, the catchment areas for the surgical department of this hospital and the clinic of hand surgery of Sabbatsberg Hospital were similar. For each case, one referent had been operated on for gall bladder disease and the other for varicous veins in the legs.The population referents were living in the catchment area of the clinic of hand surgery of the Sabbatsberg Hospital. A new population referent was drawn if the first could not be interviewed because of death, severe mental retardation, or admission to a

Role of physical load factors in carpal tunnel syndrome

“…One study reports a dose-response relationship between the prevalence of CTS and the level of repetition (68). There is some evideace that the risk of CTS increases with increasing duration of exposure to repetitive wrist movements at work (70). In the study of Silverstein et a1 (61), repetition was a stronger risk factor than force, and repetition and force together increased the risk of CTS multiplicatively.…”

“…Several cross-sectional studies have shown an association between CTS and the use of hand-held vibrating tools. Dose-response relationships have been obtained between CTS and daily vibration exposure (82), number of years using hand-held vibrating tools (70), and lifetime vibration dose (83). The results of Silverstein et a1 (61) suggest that exposure to vibration has additional effects beyond those of forcefulness and repetitiveness, but it has inostly been impossible to separate the effects of vibration from those of especially forceful gripping.…”

A conceptual model for work-related neck and upper-limb musculoskeletal disorders.

“…The "work relatedness" of musculoskeletal disorders is supported by numerous epidemiologic studies (2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21). (See table 1.)…”

Occupation and its Association with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome - A Review

“…A study by (iii) Wieslander et al in 1989 suggested that risk may double after 1 year in a job involving ‗repetitive wrist movement', while another by Tanaka et al found that risks were increased nearly 6-fold in workers bending/twisting the hand or wrist ‗many times per hour'. Two other studies, by Leclerc et al in 1998and Roquelaure et al in 1997, found associations with assembly work that involved a short elemental cycle time (10 s per repetition, RRs 1.9 and 8.8).…”