Effects of shock wave therapy in patients with carpal tunnel syndrome: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Purpose

To determine whether shock wave therapy could improve symptoms and hand function in patients with carpal tunnel syndrome.

Materials and methods

Medline, Embase, Physiotherapy Evidence Database, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, OpenGrey, CNKI, VIP, Wang Fang databases, and China Biological Medicine were searched, from inception to December 2019.

Results

Ten trials involving 433 patients (501 wrists) were included in this systematic review. The shock wave therapy was observed to have a significant effect on pain relief (MD: −0.60, 95% CI: −1.16 to −0.05, p = 0.03), syndrome alleviation (MD: −2.26, 95% CI: −3.24 to −1.27, p < 0.00001) and functional recovery (MD: −1.25 95% CI: −2.08 to −0.43, p = 0.003) among the carpal tunnel syndrome patients. As revealed by the subgroup analysis, radial shock wave therapy made a significant difference in pain relief, syndrome alleviation, and functional recovery (p < 0.05). Focused shock wave had no significant effect on pain relief, syndrome alleviation, and functional recovery (p > 0.05).

Conclusion

Shock wave therapy could be conductive to improve syndrome and hand function for carpal tunnel syndrome patients.

Implications for rehabilitation

• Shock wave therapy is beneficial for alleviating syndrome and improving hand function of carpal tunnel syndrome patients.

• Radial shock wave therapy seems superior to focused shock wave therapy on syndrome alleviation and functional recovery of hand in carpal tunnel syndrome patients.

Keywords:

• Shock wave therapy
• carpal tunnel syndrome
• meta-analysis
• pain
• Boston carpal tunnel questionnaire

Acknowledgments

The authors thank professor Paoloni Marco, Dingli Xu and Yung-Tsan Wu for supplying the raw data.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no declaration of interest.