The economic burden of carpal tunnel syndrome: Long‐term earnings of CTS claimants in Washington State

Abstract

CTS claimants recover to about half of their pre-injury earnings level relative to that of comparison groups after 6 years; they also endured periods on time-loss three times longer than claimants with upper extremity fractures. CTS surgery claimants had better outcomes than those who did not have surgery. Earnings recovery fractions among CTS claimants were better for workers who: (1) were younger; (2) had stable pre-claim employment; (3) lived in the Puget sound area; (4) worked for large businesses; (5) worked in non-construction/transportation industries; or (6) were in the higher pre-injury earnings categories. Cumulative excess loss of earnings of the 4,443 CTS claimants was 197 million dollars to 382 million dollars over 6 years, a loss of 45,000-89,000 dollars per claimant. This underscores the importance of prevention, early diagnosis, and accommodation for return to work.

The natural course of carpal tunnel syndrome in a working population

“…CTS claimants are more likely to be female (58.8% versus 32.7% for all claimants), overweight (average body mass index 28.3 versus 27.2), and on the job of injury longer (31 months versus 12 months) than Silverstein et al non-claimants (7). Long-term earnings losses for CTS claimants, measured seven years post-claim filing, are much greater for male than female CTS claimants, after adjusting for age, industry, and geography (8).…”

Gender adjustment or stratification in discerning upper extremity musculoskeletal disorder risk?

“…Females account for 37% of RCS and 59% of CTS claims (1). However, long-term earnings losses for CTS claimants, measured seven years post-filing, were much greater for male than female CTS claimants, after adjusting for age, industry and geography (2). While incidence rates for all claims were greater among men than women in West Virginia, rates for upper extremity MSD claims were greater for women (3) by industry sector.…”

Carpal tunnel syndrome and manual work: the OCTOPUS cohort, results of a ten-year longitudinal study

“…Surgically-treated CTS was three to seven times more common (depending on age/gender) among manual compared to non-manual workers (5). Thus, CTS is a common cause of work disability and determines high healthcare expenditures (6,7). A large amount of literature documented that CTS is associated with several personal characteristics, including increasing age, overweight/obesity, female gender, and musculoskeletal comorbidities (eg, trigger finger, rotator cuff syndrome, and cervical radiculopathy -double crush syndrome) (8)(9)(10)(11)(12).…”