Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS) and other Repetitive Strain Injuries (RSI's) like trigger finger, tendonitis, guyon's syndrome, cubital tunnel syndrome, dupuytren's contracture, epicondylitis, dequervain's and many other disorders effecting the upper extremity have increased to pandemic proportions over the past 5 years. For shoulder disorders, visit http://www.flextend-ac.com

Government organizations have attempted to prove that the incident rate of CTS and RSI's has decreased during the past 5-10 years, but when looking at the statistics and breaking them down, it shows that the number of those injured has not decreased at all, but instead, they are being re-categorized, and/or they are being moved and added to sub-categories.

One such example of workplace injury re-categorization shows that government organizations break down and list those employee's that are injured into a "lost -work days" category and a "light duty restriction" category. The data reveals that while employee "lost work days" has decreased 50%, the "light duty restriction" category has risen MORE than 50%.
This shows that companies are no longer allowing people to be off of work permanently while suffering from injury, but instead are keeping them on payroll, and having them perform a task that does not exacerbate their current condition. So, in reality the number of injuries has not decreased at all, but instead, those that are injured are just being re-categorized so that the statistics look as if occupational / work related injuries are decreasing.

This method of (dishonest) record keeping keeps companies from being investigated due to a high level of work related injuries and in turn also and keeps their insurance premiums from increasing.

If anything, CTS and RSI's are on the rise and costing the U.S. billions of dollars annually. Surgeons keep performing surgery with a terrible success rate of 60% or less, physicians keep prescribing anti-inflammatory medications with a success rate of less than 30% while individuals continue to suffer with limited options made available by the medical industry. See Statistics Below:

Carpal Tunnel Surgery: Average is a 57% failure rate following patients from 1-day to 6-years. At least one of the following symptoms re-occurred during this time: Pain, Numbness, Tingling sensations. Source: Nancollas, et al, 1995. J Hand Surgery.

Wrist Splints and Anti-Inflammatories: Failure rate (Including "partial success" as failure) is 82.6% in total alleviation of symptoms. Curative rate following treatment is 18.4%. Source: Kaplan, et al, 1990. J Hand Surgery.

Iontophoresis + Splinting: Failure rate is 42.1% in total alleviation from symptoms. Source: Banta, et al, 1994. J Hand Surgery.

Steroid Injection: Failure rate ( Including "partial success" as failure) is 72.6% after 1-year follow up. Source: Irwin, et al. J Hand Surgery.

Why, if the success rates of these treatments are so low, are they still being used to treat repetitive strain injuries? The reason is money..a lot of money. Surgeons, general practitioners and many others in the healthcare industry make hundreds of millions off those that are injured with RSI's. Often, their thinking is this: "why prescribe a $100 treatment that eliminates the individual's condition when I can make $4,000 for a 20-minute surgery?"

BUT.there is an alternative to expensive surgery and other methods of invasive treatment, and that treatment is FLEXTEND, a device that quickly and easily corrects muscle imbalances affecting the upper extremity, from fingertip to shoulder. For less than $100, an individual can quickly recover from existing muscle imbalances or prevent them from occurring in the first place.

AUTHOR: Mr. Anliker is a Therapist and Inventor of Therapeutic Exercise Products that are utilized by Corporations, Consumers and Medical Facilities around the world for the prevention and rehabilitation of repetitive strain injuries.