Reham Hamoda

If you are a pregnant woman suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms such as pain and tingling sensation. This book will provide you with a safe method to alleviate your pain and tinglings sensation and improve your hand function without side effects of medications. Myofascial release is an osteopathic medicine, An important principle in Osteopathic Medicine is that structure and function are intimately interrelated. An abnormality in the structure of any body part can lead to abnormal function, whether expressed locally or distantly from the deranged structure.

This study was conducted to examine the effect of myofascial release on carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) during pregnancy. Thirty pregnant women had CTS, their age ranged from 25-35 years, were selected from the Obstetric Out-patient Clinic, El-Sahel Teaching Hospital and were participated in this study. All pregnant women were assigned randomly into two groups equal in number, Group (A) control group: was worn natural wrist splint while sleeping for four weeks. And group (B) study group: they received myofascial release in addition to natural wrist splint for 4 weeks.
Evaluations of all pregnant women in both groups (A&B) were done before starting and after the end of the study (4 weeks), through Phalen's test, median nerve distal motor latency (DML) and Boston carpal tunnel questionnaire to assess pain, numbness & tingling sensation severity and hand function. The results of this study showed that statistically significant decrease (P< 0.001) in numbness & tingling sensation severity in group (A) as well as group (B). A statistically significant decrease (P< 0.001) in median nerve DML, pain intensity and weakness &difficulty in grasping severity in group (B), while group (A) showed statistically non-significant decrease (P> 0.05) in median nerve DML, pain intensity, numbness & tingling sensation severity and weakness & difficulty in grasping severity. Comparison between both groups (A&B) before starting the study reveals statistically non-significant difference between them. While after the end of the study, there was statistically significance decrease (P< 0.001) in median nerve DML, pain intensity, numbness & tingling sensation severity and weakness & difficulty in grasping severity, which in favor to group (B). Accordingly, it could be concluded that myofascial release is considered safe, non-invasive and simple method for decreasing pain intenisty, numbness & tingling sesation severity and improve the hand function in CTS during pregnancy.
Key words: Carpal tunnel syndrome, Myofascial release, Boston carpal tunnel questionnaire, Median nerve distal motor latency.