Carpal Tunnel Syndrome – Symptoms, Treatment and Claims

Information carpal tunnel syndrome injury, symptoms, treatments and claiming compensation through lawyers

For people who spend more of their time tapping keys on a keyboard, carpal tunnel syndrome injury us very likely to affect. This condition falls under the repetitive strain injury category.

In this injury, the nerve that travels through the carpal tunnel in wrist and palm is compressed by swollen tendons. This stress causes the injury to the nerve and excruciating pain. Failure to seek medical advice at the earliest can lead to serious complications.

Biology of the Carpel tunnel syndrome

The hand has 8 bones and ligaments. There a gap between these and that is the carpal tunnel. The median nerve passes through this tunnel. This is the main nerve that provides sensation to our hand, palm and fingers. In the carpal tunnel syndrome the tendons swell and reduce the size of the tunnel. Hence the nerve now has to pass through a narrow tunnel. This causes the syndrome.

Carpal tunnel syndrome’s symptoms are loss of control of wrist and palm with severe pain. Since this is a nerve injury, loss of sensation in fingers in a common symptom. The index finger is in direct alignment with the median nerve and hence, the index finger may experience pain, pricking, tingling and total loss of sensation more often than the pother fingers. In advanced conditions, there may be swelling on the palm and wrist and pain extending up to the shoulder.
Carpal tunnel syndrome’s treatment regime is firstly to take a long break from the repetitive stress motion, such as frequent lifting of weights, doing repetitive motions with tools, constant writing, knitting, etc.

In serious cases, surgery needs to be performed the manually relieve the stress from the nerve. The swollen tendons are pacified with anti inflammatory drugs and the pain is alleviated with pain killers. But this injury can be cured with just medications. Surgery is last resort.

Compensation claims

Tunnel syndrome claims can be filed by those who have developed the injury due to their work regime. It is the responsibility of the employer to see to that the employees are given adequate training to avoid such problems. This condition can restrict the use of the hands altogether and may need change of jobs. But this is hand we are talking about and even changing jobs may not help.

Loss of remuneration, loss of livelihood, pain and suffering, etc come as part of the tunnel syndrome compensation claim. To get accurate assessment of your case, seeking the advice of carpal tunnel lawyers would be the best option.