OBJECTIVES

: To investigate the prognostic utility of four patient-reported outcome measures in evaluating therapeutic effectiveness following Neuromanual therapy (NMT) for adults with Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS).

METHODS

: 42 working age adults (29 male, 13 female) with mean age 41.26 12.18 years, participated in an observer-blinded randomized clinical trial with concealed treatment allocation. The participants were randomly assigned to receive control intervention in group-1: standard care physical therapy- therapeutic ultrasound, carpal bone mobilization and hand exercises, or experimental intervention in group-2: NMT comprising of median nerve massage and slider techniques. Treatments were given for 45 mins duration, thrice weekly for three weeks. The four questionnaires: Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Questionnaire (CTSQ), Quick- Disabilities of Arm, Shoulder and Hand (DASH), Patient-Rated Wrist Evaluation (PRWE), and Boston Carpal Tunnel Questionnaire (BCTQ) were correlated with pain-free grip strength (by Jamar hand dynamometer), pain intensity on 10cm Visual analogue scale and clinical test for median nerve mobility (by Upper limb neurodynamic test-1: ULNT-1) measured in range of motion (ROM) using a goniometer. Within-group and between-group comparisons of outcome measures were performed using students' t-test at 95% confidence interval using SPSS version 22 for Windows software.

RESULTS

: Statistically significant (p<.05) improvements were detected by CTSQ for disease-specific outcomes (pre-post difference 26.14± 8.2) which correlated (r=.76) with ULNT-1 ROM confirming the criterion-related validity.

CONCLUSIONS

: CTSQ was an useful prognostic outcome measure for CTS following NMT interventions in the adults as found in this study.