Abstract

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS) is the most common disorder of neural involvement and the purpose of this study was to determine the impact of Stretching and Massage Therapy on Pain and Function of Females suffering Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. This Randomised Clinical Trial was implemented on 30 females (age: 32 + 4, height: 165 + 8, and weight: 62 + 6) who divided into 3 groups of 10 persons. First group received 20 session of massage therapy while the second had 20 session of stretching exercises and the third group just used the wrist brace. Standard Visual Analogue Scale for Pain (VAS Pain), Boston questionnaire have been used. Descriptive statistics were used for stratifying data and Shapiro test, independent T-test and U Mann Whitney test were used for analysis of data by SPPS version 18. Based on U Mann Whitney test, the effect of massage therapy on pain reduction in CTS is significant (p = 0.5). It has also has shown that massage therapy is effective on severity of symptoms of CTS and improvement of wrist and hand function (p = 0.022), but it doesn’t have any significant impact on paresthesia (p = 0.281), range of motion (p = 0.655), grip force (p = 0.427), and pinch force (p = 0.145) of CTS patients. Independent T-test between stretching group and wrist brace group showed that stretching had a significant effect on pain (p = 0.017), function (p = 0.011), and severity of signs and symptoms of CTS (p = 0.024), but it didn’t have any meaningful impact on paresthesia (p = 0.176), range of motion (p = 0.0537), grip force (p = 0.0587), and pinch force (p = 0.481) of patients. It has been concluded that stretching and massage could be used for treatment of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.