ClinicalTrials.gg
CompletedNCT04329247Updated Dec 10, 2025

Physical Therapy in the Treatment of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

An interventional study of Median nerve neural mobilization in Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, sponsored by Universidad Europea de Madrid. Completed at 1 site in Venezuela. Open to participants aged 18 Years to 70 Years. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2025-12-10.

Sponsored by Universidad Europea de Madrid · Not applicable, Interventional, and Supportive care

Phase
Not applicable
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
74
Allocation
Randomized
Ages
18 Years to 70 Years
Sex
All
01

Study summary

In the present investigation the pain reduction effects of a physical therapy technique will be compared to those produced by the absence of treatment, in subjects who suffer the signs and symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome.

Read the detailed description

The present randomized clinical trial will perform a comparison of the pain reduction effect produced by the application of the median nerve neural mobilization technique (a non pharmaceutical physical therapy treatment), to the pain reduction effect produced by the total absence of treatment in subjects who suffer carpal tunnel syndrome. Functionality of the affected upper limb will be evaluated and compared. Subjects will be invited to participate and randomly allocated to 2 different groups.

02

Conditions studied

  • Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Keywords

  • Pain management
  • Physiotherapy
  • Manual therapy
  • Median nerve neural mobilization
  • Neural mobilization
03

In context

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

587 studies on the registry are indexed under Carpal Tunnel Syndrome; 134 are open to participants now.

This study's enrollment of 74 is above the median of 60 across 443 interventional studies indexed under Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

Browse Carpal Tunnel Syndrome studies →

Lead sponsor

Universidad Europea de Madrid is the lead sponsor of 99 studies on the registry; 23 are open to participants now.

Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.

04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
18 Years to 70 Years
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
No

Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.

Inclusion criteria

  • Participants must be medically diagnosed with unilateral carpal tunnel syndrome (with confirmative electrodiagnostic findings).
  • Full understanding of written and spoken Spanish (language).
  • Participants must freely consent to participate.
  • The presence of positive Phalen and Tinel signs.
  • The presence of carpal tunnel syndrome signs and symptoms

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  • The lack to meet inclusion criterions, the presence of cognitive impairment.
  • Tumors
  • Cancer
  • Upper limb surgery or trauma
  • Pregnancy
  • Deformities of the (affected) upper limb
  • Recent skin injuries or infections (in the affected upper limb)
  • inflammatory conditions or flu type symptoms.
  • Allergy to gabapentin
  • Participants must not be (during the present investigation) under any type of pain reducing treatment (conservative, homeopathic, invasive or not invasive).
  • Metabolic neuropathy.
  • Obesity ( over 30).
  • Participants who are not employed.
Terms in these criteria, in plain language(2)

Underlined terms in the criteria open these too. Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.

Autoimmune disease

A condition in which the immune system attacks the body’s own tissues, such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, psoriasis, type 1 diabetes or inflammatory bowel disease.

Immunotherapy studies often leave out active autoimmune disease, and some name exceptions, such as thyroid disease on replacement hormone. Check the exceptions this study lists.

BMI (body mass index)

Weight in kilograms divided by height in metres squared. Example: 70 kg and 1.75 m gives 70 ÷ (1.75 × 1.75) ≈ 22.9.

What counts as overweight or obesity differs between countries (some use lower cut-offs), so go by the range the study states.

05

Study design

Phase
Not applicable
Primary purpose
Supportive care
Allocation
Randomized
Intervention model
Parallel assignment
Masking
Triple (Participant, Investigator, Outcomes assessor)
Enrollment
74 participants (actual)

Study arms

  • Experimental
    Median nerve neural mobilization

    Non pharmaceutical, non invasive, physiotherapy technique; which consists of a passive and repetitive upper limb movement that seeks to induced median nerve gliding and incursions against surrounding connective tissue. Subjects will be treated 5 days per week during a total time lapse of 4 weeks.

    Other: Median nerve neural mobilization

  • No intervention
    Control group

    Waiting list control group. Participants that belong to the no intervention arm will be assigned to a waiting list to receive treatment. The participants will not receive treatment for carpal tunnel syndrome during a time lapse of 4 weeks. After this period of time, participants will begin the best treatment available.

Interventions

  • OtherMedian nerve neural mobilization

    Manual therapy maneuver performed in the upper limb.

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Distal upper limb pain

    Assessed through the visual analog scale (VAS). The VAS is a psychometric response scale. It is a measurement instrument for subjective characteristics or attitudes that cannot be directly measured.The VAS is the most frequently used method to assess pain intensity. The scale will be displayed as a horizontal 100-mm line labelled at each end by descriptors such as 'no pain' (the minimum and best outcome possible) and 'worse pain ever' (maximum and worst outcome possible). The participant will mark the line to indicate pain severity.

    Time frame: Changes from baseline (measured immediately before the application of the first treatment) and immediately after the application of the last treatment (at 4 weeks).

Secondary outcomes

  1. Upper limb function

    Assessed through the quick Quick Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand questionary (QuickDASH), which is a shortened version of the 30-item Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand (DASH) instrument.The instrument administered to the participants will be a self-report questionnaire, that will rate the difficulty and interference of daily life on a 5 point Likert scale. At least 10 of the 11 items must be completed for a score to be calculated and the scores range from 0 (no disability) to 100 (most severe disability).

    Time frame: Changes from baseline (measured immediately before the application of the first treatment) and immediately after the application of the last treatment (at 4 weeks)

Other outcomes

  1. Work Status at baseline

    This measure is performed through the employed participant (full-time or part-time) answering in a dichotomous manner (yes or no) the question: "Do you currently work?"

    Time frame: Measured immediately before the application of the first treatment

  2. Work Status post treatment

    This measure is performed through the employed participant (full-time or part-time) answering in a dichotomous manner (yes or no) the question: "Do you currently work?"

    Time frame: Measured immediatly after the application of the last treatment.

  3. Change in Work Task (Job Type)

    This measure is performed through the employed participant (full-time or part-time) answering in a dichotomous manner (yes or no) the question: "Did you change your job type or task?"

    Time frame: Measured immediatly after the application of the last treatment.

  4. Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia-17 (TSK-17)

    The Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia-17 (TSK-17) is a 17-item questionnaire designed to assess the fear of movement and re-injury (kinesiophobia). Items are rated on a 4-point Likert scale (ranging from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree"), yielding a total score that reflects the severity of pain-related fear avoidance beliefs. It's a widely used and vailidaded clinical and research instrument. The standard total score range for the Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia (TSK-17) is 17 to 68. It is calculated by summing 17 items, each scored 1-4, with four items reverse-scored. Higher scores indicate greater fear of movement.

    Time frame: Changes from baseline (measured immediately before the application of the first treatment), and at 60 minutes after the application of the last treatment.

07

Study locations

1 site
  • Ciudad Hospitalaria Enrique Tejera
    Valencia, Carabobo 2001, Venezuela
08

References and documents

Publications

  • Nagle RJ, Thwaite BC. Modeling effects on impulsivity with learning disabled children. J Learn Disabil. 1979 May;12(5):331-6. doi: 10.1177/002221947901200509. No abstract available. PubMed 521680 ↗
  • Davis PT, Hulbert JR, Kassak KM, Meyer JJ. Comparative efficacy of conservative medical and chiropractic treatments for carpal tunnel syndrome: a randomized clinical trail. J Manipulative Physiol Ther. 1998 Jun;21(5):317-26. PubMed 9627862 ↗
  • Banta CA. A prospective, nonrandomized study of iontophoresis, wrist splinting, and antiinflammatory medication in the treatment of early-mild carpal tunnel syndrome. J Occup Med. 1994 Feb;36(2):166-8. doi: 10.1097/00043764-199402000-00012. PubMed 8176515 ↗
  • Hesami O, Haghighatzadeh M, Lima BS, Emadi N, Salehi S. The effectiveness of gabapentin and exercises in the treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome: a randomized clinical trial. J Exerc Rehabil. 2018 Dec 27;14(6):1067-1073. doi: 10.12965/jer.1836420.210. eCollection 2018 Dec. PubMed 30656171 ↗
  • Dosenovic S, Jelicic Kadic A, Miljanovic M, Biocic M, Boric K, Cavar M, Markovina N, Vucic K, Puljak L. Interventions for Neuropathic Pain: An Overview of Systematic Reviews. Anesth Analg. 2017 Aug;125(2):643-652. doi: 10.1213/ANE.0000000000001998. PubMed 28731977 ↗
  • Sanz DR, Solano FU, Lopez DL, Corbalan IS, Morales CR, Lobo CC. Effectiveness of median nerve neural mobilization versus oral ibuprofen treatment in subjects who suffer from cervicobrachial pain: a randomized clinical trial. Arch Med Sci. 2018 Jun;14(4):871-879. doi: 10.5114/aoms.2017.70328. Epub 2017 Sep 26. PubMed 30002707 ↗
  • Calvo-Lobo C, Unda-Solano F, Lopez-Lopez D, Sanz-Corbalan I, Romero-Morales C, Palomo-Lopez P, Seco-Calvo J, Rodriguez-Sanz D. Is pharmacologic treatment better than neural mobilization for cervicobrachial pain? A randomized clinical trial. Int J Med Sci. 2018 Mar 8;15(5):456-465. doi: 10.7150/ijms.23525. eCollection 2018. PubMed 29559834 ↗
  • Rodriguez-Sanz D, Lopez-Lopez D, Unda-Solano F, Romero-Morales C, Sanz-Corbalan I, Beltran-Alacreu H, Calvo-Lobo C. Effects of Median Nerve Neural Mobilization in Treating Cervicobrachial Pain: A Randomized Waiting List-Controlled Clinical Trial. Pain Pract. 2018 Apr;18(4):431-442. doi: 10.1111/papr.12614. Epub 2017 Nov 20. PubMed 28734105 ↗
  • Basson A, Olivier B, Ellis R, Coppieters M, Stewart A, Mudzi W. The Effectiveness of Neural Mobilization for Neuromusculoskeletal Conditions: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. J Orthop Sports Phys Ther. 2017 Sep;47(9):593-615. doi: 10.2519/jospt.2017.7117. Epub 2017 Jul 13. PubMed 28704626 ↗
  • Ballestero-Perez R, Plaza-Manzano G, Urraca-Gesto A, Romo-Romo F, Atin-Arratibel MLA, Pecos-Martin D, Gallego-Izquierdo T, Romero-Franco N. Effectiveness of Nerve Gliding Exercises on Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: A Systematic Review. J Manipulative Physiol Ther. 2017 Jan;40(1):50-59. doi: 10.1016/j.jmpt.2016.10.004. Epub 2016 Nov 11. PubMed 27842937 ↗
  • Eren Y, Yavasoglu NG, Comoglu SS. The relationship between QDASH scale and clinical, electrophysiological findings in carpal tunnel syndrome. Adv Clin Exp Med. 2018 Jan;27(1):71-75. doi: 10.17219/acem/67947. PubMed 29521045 ↗
  • Ginanneschi F, Cioncoloni D, Bigliazzi J, Bonifazi M, Lore C, Rossi A. Sensory axons excitability changes in carpal tunnel syndrome after neural mobilization. Neurol Sci. 2015 Sep;36(9):1611-5. doi: 10.1007/s10072-015-2218-x. Epub 2015 Apr 21. PubMed 25896622 ↗
  • Yucel H, Seyithanoglu H. Choosing the most efficacious scoring method for carpal tunnel syndrome. Acta Orthop Traumatol Turc. 2015;49(1):23-9. doi: 10.3944/AOTT.2015.13.0162. PubMed 25803249 ↗

Individual participant data

Plan to share: No

09

Updates

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
No changes since tracking began. The registry record was last updated on Dec 10, 2025, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
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Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT04329247
Lead sponsor
Universidad Europea de Madrid
Responsible party
Francisco Unda Solano (Biomedicine Doctorate Program Investigator, Universidad Europea de Madrid) — Principal investigator
First posted
Apr 1, 2020
Start date
May 5, 2020
Primary completion
Aug 8, 2020
Completion
Aug 14, 2020
Last update
Dec 10, 2025

Study contacts

Carlos Perez, MD
study chair · INSALUD

Oversight

Data monitoring committee
Yes
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

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