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| AA,(2017), Muscular and Skeletal system |
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AA,(2017), Nervous System |
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| AA,(2017), Body |
My patient's name is Ben. His disease is Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. He first started to see signs of this when he was in his 30’s. It affected his life as the condition worsened because it restricted the use of his hands. The main three Body Systems it affects are the Nervous System, the Muscular System, and the Skeletal System. Ben says, “As it started to get worse and worse over time, I started to wake up in the middle of the night. I would not have any feeling in my hands or fingers at all or only have feeling in three of my fingers.” What he learned to do was lay in a way so that he could keep his hands flat. He went to a doctor to take some tests and the tests determined that he had Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. The doctor wanted him to start exercises so that the inflammation would go down a little bit. The doctors also prescribed him hand braces. After that, the only way it would affect his life is if he did not wear this hand brace when in bed. He would wake up in the middle of the night with his hand hurting and his fingers being numb. Some of the symptoms of this disease are pain in hand, finger numbness, tingling in hand and arm, and weakness in hand, arm, or fingers. Some common causes of CTS are repetitive motion (such as working in a meat processing factory) or typing many hours a day (such as a writer). Inflammation means a swollen condition when an organ, tissue or muscle is bigger than normal. Numbness is when the person cannot feel anything when touching an object or being touched by another person or object. For Ben, it occurs when he does not put the hand braces on before he goes to bed. Some of the treatments are rest, ice, cortisone injections, and surgery. Ben did not want to take cortisone injections or undergo surgery so he tried exercise and putting ice on his wrists to reduce the inflammation. It did work a little, but he was still having pain. Next, he went to a medical supply store to purchase hand braces. He would put them on before he would go to sleep. It kept his wrists immobile during the night and kept them straight. The Hand brace helps people with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. It will keep the hand straight and in one position. This disease can be classified as genetic and environmental. It is genetic because you could have a predisposition from your family. It is environmental because you normally get it in an environment where you are doing motion that is repetitive. An example is in meat package factories where the workers cut meat over and over again the same way, and they do it all day long. Another example is typing at a computer for many hours. That is how Ben's developed CTS. Other risk factors are health problems or illnesses that can cause arm pain or swelling in the joints and soft tissues in the arm, or that reduce the blood flow to the hands. There is not a geography for the frequency of the disease and the cause is primarily environmental from repetitive motion and genetic predisposition inherited from the mother and father. For the patient, it normally happens in the thumb and index finger or middle finger, ring finger, and pinky. This disease affects the Nervous System by tingling, numbness, or pain in the nerves that go to your hand. The thumb, index, and middle fingers can be affected by it too. It can affect the Muscular System by causing weakness of the flexor pollicis brevis, opponens pollicis, and abductor pollicis brevis. It can affect the Skeletal System by displacing the bones in your hand potentially causing injury.
WORK CITED:
"Carpal Tunnel Syndrome." Interview by Ben Tomson. n.d.Web.15 Jan.2017.
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