915 - The effects of high intensity laser therapy on pain, functional status, hand grip strength and median nerve cross section in ultrasonography in patients with carpal tunnel syndrome

Objectives: In this study, it was aimed to evaluate the effects of HILT treatment on pain, functional status and hand grip strength in patients with CTS and on the median nerve area in ultrasonography

Design: It was planned to include 60 CTS patients with CTS symptoms and signs who applied to Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation outpatient clinics. Sixty patients diagnosed with CTS by electrophysiological findings were included in the study. VAS, Boston CTS Questionnaire (BCTQ), hydraulic hand dynamometer and US were used for evaluation. The patients were randomly divided into two groups as splint+exercises+HILT and splint+exercises+sham laser treatment groups. All patients were evaluated before treatment, after treatment and at 3 months.

Results: While there was a significant increase in hand grip strength at the end of the 3rd month in both groups (p< 0,001), a statistically significant increase was found within the group only in the HILT group after treatment (p< 0,001). There was no superiority between the groups on the change in hand grip strength (p=0,449). There was a significant difference between median nerve cross-sectional area before treatment, but this difference was in favor of disease severity in the HILT group (p=0,013). While a significant improvement was observed in the BCTQ SSS-FSS scores and VAS values for pain in the pre-treatment-post-treatment and pre-treatment-3nd month controls for all 3 evaluation parameters (p< 0,001), no statistically significant superiority was found between the groups (p values were p=0,973, p=0,226, p=0,454).

Conclusions: For patients with CTS, HILT combined with a standard physical therapy program was found to be more effective than physical therapy alone in the early period in improving hand grip strength and median nerve cross-sectional area parameters measured on US. Although there is no definite consensus on the standard treatment protocol in CTS patients, it seems safe to add HILT to the conventional treatment program.