Medical Futures Innovation Award London, UK

Medical Futures: Mediracer - Carpal Tunnel Diagnosis Veijo Lesonen & Mr Tim Green Winner of the Best Diagnostic in the Bone & Joint Innovation Awards 2007.

This is a new device that can diagnose carpal tunnel syndrome in an out patient setting. Carpal tunnel syndrome is a painful condition most commonly affecting middle aged women.

Symptoms include pain and tingling in the fingers and often sufferers drop things accidentally. The cause is squashing of a nerve in the wrist and diagnosis is confirmed using a special nerve test that can take 9 months to arrange in many centres due to long waiting lists.

This new device is hand held and allows instant diagnosis in an out-patient setting. It was developed in Finland but tested by a team of British Orthopaedic surgeons who have now developed a one stop service for treating carpal tunnel syndrome and have virtually abolished their waiting lists from 106 weeks to nil."

The neurophysiolog Veijo Lesonen says, "Winning the award was like participating in the Oscar Gala."

The event took place in London June 14, 2007.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia •

Neurophysiology is a part of physiology. Neurophysiology is the study of nervous system function. It is closely connected with neurobiology, psychology, neurology, clinical neurophysiology, electrophysiology, ethology, neuroanatomy, cognitive science and other brain sciences.

Surgical Neurophysiology is an applied subfield of neuroscience. A surgical neurophysiologist may work as a researcher at a university, or as a member of a surgical team in the surgical suite or operating room (OR).

In the OR, he or she is involved with the functional monitoring of neural structures and neural systems with the aim of safe guarding the nervous system of the patient. He or she may also facilitate the surgical procedure by performing electrophysiological assays to identify neural structures.

These intraoperative roles are termed neuromonitoring. Neuromonitoring is of great benefit to a patient undergoing any of a wide variety of surgeries -- generally, any surgery in which:

1. there is a high risk of damage to the nervous system, and/or
2. the procedure requires functional guidance.

Surgical neurophysiologists are trained in neuroscience, electrophysiology, and anatomy.

The specialised skills and judgment needed to perform neuromonitoring are almost always obtained through mentoring in the OR. The specialised knowledge may be obtained similarly, or formally, and some in the field have an MD or Ph.D..

Two stages of credentialing exist: the technologist level CNIM [1], and the professional level D.ABNM [2].