[Carpal tunnel syndrome and steel industry]

The carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is a common working pathology. The CTS diagnosis is not so easy because neurophysiological investigations are necessary. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the working risks and the presence of CTS signs using a focused anamnestic and clinical procedure.

We evaluated the working risks of CTS in a population of 65 male workers of a steel industry (average age 25.1 and seniority 2.82), performing 5 different tasks. The Borg Scale was used to evaluate the subjective muscle effort. Diurnal paresthesia (V1FG), nocturnal paresthesia (V1FN), hypersensitivity (V1IS), hypostenia (V1IT) were considered.

We identified three main working risks repetitiveness of single actions, static and prolonged posture of the truck, muscle effort. 21.5% of the workers showed at least one of the three symptoms;13.8% showed one or more symptoms; the clinical objectivity was observed in 18.5%. A relation between V1FG, V1FN, clinical objective linked to the workers age of the task 1 (p =0.035) is showed.

To prevent CTS, the use of the Borg Scale associated with identification of the risks and with the anamenstic-clinical investigation is useful to discriminate people at risk of CTS.