NerveComparing the Outcome of a Carpal Tunnel Decompression at 2 Weeks and 6 Months
Section snippets
Materials and Methods
We used the self-administered questionnaire designed by Katz and Levine, which is also known as the Boston questionnaire. This is in 2 parts. The first part consists of 11 questions concerning the severity in symptoms, with each answer scored from 1 to 5 in the ascending order of severity of symptoms, making a total score of 55, with 11 being the best and 55 the worst score. This is the symptom severity score (SSS). The other section has 8 questions of activities of daily living, scored from 1
Results
Scores improved significantly between the preoperative period and 2 weeks postoperatively as well as between the preoperative period and 6 months postoperatively (Table 1, Table 3).
Overall, 291 (97%) patients had improvement of symptoms and 294 (98%) improved functionally. Whereas no patient had the lowest combined total score (19) before operation, 94 patients had this score postoperatively (Table 2). After 6 months, 9 (3%) patients had deterioration of SSS by 10 points or more; only 6 (2%)
Discussion
The questionnaire used here measures symptoms and functional status but in different spectrums of the disease. We have considerable experience with the Boston questionnaire in the assessment of carpal tunnel syndrome and find it easy to apply. Other questionnaires, however, are available, such as the Michigan Hand questionnaire and the DASH questionnaire1, 7 or the more recently developed Stothard and Kamath questionnaire,5 all of which have shown to be equally responsive to the Boston
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