RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Therapeutic touch in the treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome. JF The Journal of the American Board of Family Practice JO J Am Board Fam Med FD American Board of Family Medicine SP 335 OP 342 VO 14 IS 5 A1 R P Blankfield A1 C Sulzmann A1 L G Fradley A1 A A Tapolyai A1 S J Zyzanski YR 2001 UL http://www.jabfm.org/content/14/5/335.abstract AB BACKGROUND Alternative medical therapies are widely utilized, but there are few objective data to evaluate the effectiveness of these techniques. The purpose of this study was to determine whether one alternative therapy, Therapeutic Touch (TT), can improve objective indices of median nerve function in patients with carpal tunnel syndrome.METHODS Participants with electrodiagnostically confirmed carpal tunnel syndrome were randomly assigned in single-blind fashion to receive either TT or sham therapeutic touch once weekly for 6 consecutive weeks. The distal latency of the median motor nerve along with visual analog assessments of pain and relaxation were measured before and after each treatment session.RESULTS Twenty-one participants completed the study. Changes in median motor nerve distal latencies, pain scores, and relaxation scores did not differ between participants in the TT group and participants in the sham treatment group, either immediately after each treatment session or cumulatively. Immediately after each treatment session, however, there were improvements from baseline among all the outcome variables in both groups.CONCLUSIONS In this small study, TT was no better than placebo in influencing median motor nerve distal latencies, pain scores, and relaxation scores. The changes in the outcome variables from baseline in both groups suggest a possible physiologic basis for the placebo effect.