Reliability of upper limb tension test 1 in normal subjects and patients with carpal tunnel syndrome

Background and objective: Tension tests or neurodynamic techniques assess the mobility of the peripheral nerves and provide a guide for planning and managing physiotherapy treatments of entrapment syndromes such as carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). One of the upper limb tension tests (ULTT) is ULTT1 that evaluates the efficacy of physiotherapy treatment. It has been shown to be a valid test but its reliability has not been investigated for CTS. Therefore, it is not known if the ULTT1 helps in diagnosing CTS and assessing CTS treatments. The purpose of this study was to determine the reliability of the ULTT1 in CTS. Material and methods: In order to determine the reliability of the ULTT1, we tested 23 healthy subjects and 12 subjects with CTS on two separate test days. Outcome measure for this study was elbow extension. Results: Inter subject elbow extensions were not significantly different between the two test days. Also, the coefficient of correlation +/- SEM in healthy and CTS subjects were 0.89 +/- 1.23 degrees and 0.84 +/- 3.67 degrees, respectively. Conclusion: From the above results, we conclude that the ULTT1 is highly reliable and can be used in diagnosis as well as the management of CTS.