The Effectiveness of Exercise Therapy and Dry Needling on Wrist Range of Motion, Pinch and Grip Force in Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Abstract

Background: Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is the most prevalent form of peripheral neuropathy. There are various treatments for carpal tunnel. Objectives: In this study, we evaluated the effect of electroacupuncture and exercise on pinch and grip strength and wrist range of motion in patients with mild to moderate CTS. Methods: Sixty patients with carpal tunnel syndrome were evaluated in this study, only five of whom were male. In this study, patients were divided into three groups. The control group consisted of 20 patients who only used splints in the second group, in addition to splints, special exercises were administered, and the third group, electroacupuncture, and brace were prescribed for 12 sessions of 40-minute duration. study time was 6 weeks. The parameters of pinch force, grip force, ROM (flexion and extension) were evaluated at baseline and after the treatment. Results: In this study, 55 women and 5 men with an average age of 49.23 ± 8.96 were enrolled. At the final follow up, significant improvements in all parameters were found in third groups (P < 0.05), except flexion of the wrist in the control group (P = 0.098). Our findings indicate that exercise therapy had more effect on ROM of flexion than acupuncture and acupuncture had more effect on pinching than exercise therapy but the effect sizes were weak. Also, the efficacy of splint alone was less than intervention groups in all parameters. Conclusions: Results of this study demonstrated that adding exercise or acupuncture to nocturnal splinting, the functional improvement is more in patients with mild to moderate carpal tunnel syndrome and these interventions could be adopted in the management of these patients.

Effects of Dry Needling in Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: A Mini-review

“…However, exercise therapy had the greatest effect on increasing the range of motion, whereas there was no study evaluating the effectiveness of acupuncture on movement activities in the treatment of CTS. 18 Edwards and Knowles determined that superficial DN plus active stretching was considerably more effective in suppressing the cause factors as compared to active stretching only. Pain threshold measurement literature suggests that superficial DN is an effective approach for deactivating TrP, as the TrPs require deactivation before stretching, with the likely relaxation of tight muscle bands.…”

Efficacy and safety of electroacupuncture for carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS): A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

“…Study reported that low-intensity electroacupuncture was antiinflammatory and relieved pain by driving the vagal-adrenal anti-inflammatory axis and by inducing vagal activation of aromatic L-amino acid decarboxylase (42,43). Recently, some studies (34,35) have reported that electroacupuncture provided better clinical outcomes than other treatments. However, no guideline or consensus was established regarding which type of treatment was preferable to improve clinical outcomes.…”

Current diagnosis and management of carpal tunnel syndrome: A review

“…57 Acupuncture therapy can be considered as an alternative management for patients who can't go through for early decompression surgery. 58 Hidayati HB, et al carpal tunnel syndrome www.apicareonline.com 401 Open access attribute (CC BY-NC 4.0)…”