Pretty much everyone has heard of this one. A lot of people will associate this condition as being caused by repetitive overuse of the wrist joints or hands. This would fall under the category of trauma but, as our nifty little mnemonic would show, trauma is one of 10 different possible causes for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS). The mnemonic is "MEDIAN TRAP" and it's a good mnemonic because the median nerve is exactly what's being disturbed in CTS. The mnemonic is as follows;
- Myxoedema
- Edema premenstrually
- Diabetes mellitus
- Idiopathic
- Acromegaly
- Neoplasm
- Trauma
- Rheumatoid arthritis
- Amyloidosis
- Pregnancy
For anyone that's found this blog entry because you actually have CTS, you may wish to consider a theurapeutic technique known as Graston. Here is a main graston website, http://www.grastontechnique.com/. and if you Google "graston carpal tunnel" you can get a lot of specific information pertaining to CTS.
With GT a doctor, probably a chiropractor, will use a very expensive set of tools to help work on your muscles and connective tissue. The set of tools pictured here runs for $2,755.00
I have got to practice with these a bit (although not yet certified in their use) and the website explains it pretty well. These are surgical steel instruments which actually resonate in the physicians hands which allow isolation of adhesions and restrictions and very precise treatment. The analogy of a stethoscope is often used since just as a stethoscope amplifies what the human ear can hear, so do the instruments increase significantly what the human hands can feel.
Anyway, given a choice between someone cutting into your arm with a knife or giving Graston a shot first, I would definitely Graston and perhaps even an adjustment or two a shot first.
Wow - the main point of this post was to talk about the carpal bones and help prep for an upcoming video but, it's 5:22 a.m. and I'm starting to get a bit tired.
I'd like to get another video posted on YouTube that's as popular as my Brachial Plexus video which, in itself is a tall order.
The carpal bones are the bones that make up your wrist. There are eight of them. In the foot we have tarsals and there are seven of them. (3 cuneforms, a cuboid, navicular talus and calcaneus) The remaining bones of the hands and feet are pretty much the same after that with a total of 27 bones in each hand and 26 in each foot for a total of 106 bones for those of us with both hands and feet. I'm always amazed by that. We generally cite 206 bones total in the human body and over half those bones can be found in the hands and feet.
For the carpals we have two rows of bones, a proximal row (that row closest to the body) and a distal row, further away from the body, towards the fingers.
Each row has four bones and we generally name these from lateral to medial which means from the thumb side of the hand to the pinky side of the hand.
Scaphoid, Lunate, Triquetrum (aka triquetral) and pisiform
on the distal row we have the trapezium, trapazoid, capitate and hamate.
The fun mnemonic we have to help remember these bones is "Some Lovers Try Positions They Can't Handle"
The scaphoid is the most commonly fractured carpal bone and 70% of the time that fracture is in the "waist" area (about midway down). The scapohid has an interesting blood supply. There's generally two arteries that enter the scaphoid and the oddity here is that one enters distally and the other around the waist or middle of the bone. I can't think of a lot of bones offhand where the blood supply goes to the far end of the bone only to make a u-turn to infiltrate the bone.
The big deal with the blood supply configuration is that it makes the scaphoid bone more prone to AVN, avascular necrosis since a fracture below the blood supply can result in death of the parts of the bone to which the blood is cut off.
The capitate is the largest of the carpal bones.
Scaphoid means boat and, is kinda shaped like a boat. Lunate gets it's name derivation from Luna which means moon and is somewhat crescent shaped. The pisiform is like a pea and rest on top of the triquetrum.
going to have to call it a night and get an hour or two of sleep. so much more to talk about regarding those nifty little bones....
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