Carpal Tunnel Syndrome – Surgery Overview

Transcript

The surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome involves decompressing the median nerve at the carpal tunnel. The way I do that is that I do an open carpal tunnel release, which involves making an incision in the palm – it’s about an inch long. Under direct visualization, I wear loupes magnifying glasses so I can see the nerve clearly and make an incision right here in the palm and go down to what’s called the transverse carpal ligament, which is the ligament that’s compressing the nerve. Then I split that ligament and that decompresses the nerve. And in so doing, generally it’s a very successful procedure and patients are very happy after having it done because they can feel their fingers again. That’s the open release. There’s also an endoscopic release, which I personally do not do and that involves actually using a camera to decompress the median nerve at the carpal tunnel.