What Is Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS)?:

What Is Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS)?: Carpal tunnel syndrome: www.bbc.co.uk/health/ask_the_doctor/carpaltunnel.shtml

What Is Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS)?: www.rsi.org.uk/pdf/carpal_tunnel_syndrome.pdf

The carpal tunnel is a passageway in the wrist formed by the eight carpal (wrist) bones, which make up the floor and sides of the tunnel, and the transverse carpal ligament, a strong ligament stretching across the roof of the tunnel.

Inside the carpal tunnel are tendons which run down
from the muscles in the forearm and work to flex your fingers and thumb.

Also running through the tunnel is the median nerve, a cord about the size of a pencil, supplying information back to the brain about sensations you feel in your thumb, index, middle and (occasionally) ring fingers.

In carpal tunnel syndrome the median nerve gets squeezed, often because the tendons become
swollen and overfill the tunnel, and this causes the symptoms described below.

What Is Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS)?: www.carpal-tunnel-syndrome.net/carpaltunnelsyndrome.htm

At the base of the palm is a tight canal or “tunnel” through which tendons and nerves must pass on their way from the forearm to the hand and fingers.

The nerve that passes through this narrow tunnel to reach the hand is called the Median Nerve.

This narrow passage between the forearm and hand is what we call “The Carpal Tunnel”.

The Carpal Tunnel is normally quite snug and there is just barely enough room in it for the tendons and nerves that have to pass through it.

If anything takes up extra room in the canal, things become too tight and the nerve in the canal becomes constricted or “pinched”.

This pinching of the nerve causes numbness and tingling in the area of the hand that the nerve travels to.

The condition that results when the Median Nerve is being pinched in The Carpal Tunnel is commonly referred to as Carpal Tunnel Syndrome or “CTS”.