Three cases of absence of the carpal scaphoid bone have previously been reported in this country (Hodgson 1943, Hanley and Conlon 1957). All three had similar deformities, namely absence or hypoplasia of the carpal scaphoid bone, associated with retardation in the development of the first metacarpal bone, the styloid process of the radius and thenar muscles. While agreeing with these authors th...

the median nerve at the wrist in subjects during two motor imagery conditions: holding and not holding the sensor of a pinch meter between the thumb and index finger. Our aim was to determine whether mental simulation without the muscle contraction associated with motion can increase the excitability of spinal neural function in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). F-waves of the left thenar...

A significant number of hand infections were found to occur in college students, a group not associated with manual labour. Diabetics did not have a significant delay in recognising the symptoms but have a significant longer period of hospitalisation. The right hand was predominantly involved especially the thumb, index finger and the thenar region. Staphylococcus aureus was the commonest infec...

Wassel VI radial polydactyly is associated with metacarpal adduction and deviation of the metacarpophalangeal joint ulnar duplicate. The soft tissue abnormalities responsible for these deformities were characterized using preoperative multi-planar three-dimensional ultrasound intraoperative observation in four patients. In all patients, abductor pollicis brevis superficial head flexor inserted ...

Objectives:Objective measures of morbidity will be required to establish the radial artery (RA) as a viable long term alternative to saphenous vein. The RA is the dominant arterial supply to the thenar musculature. We hypothesised that RA harvest should decrease O2 saturation and thenar muscle power. Methods: RA was harvested from non-dominant (ND) limbs only (left n ˆ 58, right n ˆ 21). Oximet...

OBJECTIVES To compare the contamination level of physicians' hands and stethoscopes and to explore the risk of cross-transmission of microorganisms through the use of stethoscopes. PATIENTS AND METHODS We conducted a structured prospective study between January 1, 2009, and May 31, 2009, involving 83 inpatients at a Swiss university teaching hospital. After a standardized physical examination...

Spinal cord injury may change both the distribution and the strength of the synaptic input within a motoneuron pool and therefore alter force gradation. Here, we have studied the relative contributions of motor unit recruitment and rate modulation to force gradation during voluntary contractions of thenar muscles performed by five individuals with chronic (>1 yr) cervical spinal cord injury. Me...

Once people have a well-trained motor skill, their performance becomes stabilized and achieving substantial improvement is difficult. Recently, we have shown that even a plateaued hand motor skill can be upgraded with short-period electrical stimulation to the hand prior to the task. Here, we identify the neuronal substrates underlying the improvement of the plateaued skill by examining the enh...