Differential diagnosis

Home

Pages

Diabetes and endocrinology

Carpal tunnel syndrome

Add annotation to this page

Authoring team

The differential diagnosis for symptoms suggestive of carpal tunnel syndrome:

there is localised neck pain, stiffness, exacerbation of symptoms on neck movement and atypical patterns of neurological involvement

diabetic neuropathy – remember that diabetes is the commonest cause of mononeuropathy

osteoarthritis of the small joints of the hand - may coexist with carpal tunnel syndrome

suspect when symptoms are present in both the arms and the legs or reflexes are lost or diminished, or both

seen in the distribution of the ulnar nerve

inflammatory arthropathy of the small joints of the hand

(1) Arthritis Research Campaign (June 2004). Hands On - Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

Middleton SD, Anakwe RE Carpal tunnel syndrome. BMJ. 2014;349:g6437

Annotations let you add information to this page that would be handy to have on hand during a consultation, such as a web address or phone number. Reflective notes let you add information to the CPD dashboard based on the content of this page: what did you learn from it and how might it change your practice?

Annotations let you add information to this page that would be handy to have on hand during a consultation, such as a web address or phone number. This information will always be displayed when you visit this page

Differential diagnosis

Create an account to add page annotations