I do not understand the results off online test?
5 August 2015 - 1:07pm
Overall Ann -12%
CRP 3%
Perhaps I'm being dumb but what do these scores mean please?
I had hoped there would be some table or something that would explain test results that I could check.
Also - noted that on test it doesn't ask you if your symptoms are worse in the mornings and mine really are.
My fingers are numb, painful and often locked first thing in the morning.
My GP has never bothered to give me splints but told me to buy some and I have been wearing them night and on bad days and or when I need to use my hands a lot of lift and there was no where to add this info on the questionnaire either?
Many Thanks
6 August 2015 - 4:42am
#2
Thank You, when it had -12 and didn't say it was out of 100, I didn't get it.
They indicate a 12% chance that your symptoms are due to CTS. That is - of 100 people with symptoms like yours 12 of them will turn out to have hard evidence of CTS when tested. I can't quite think how to put this in a table that will help, though we may simplify it still further. We use two different mathematical methods to evaluate your symptoms and they generally give two somewhat different answers - though they are only rarely widely in disagreement. We actually take the higher estimate of the two so we might alter the site so that it only displays one of them (the highest) to the user to reduce confusion. You will then just have a single percentage prediction which should not really require any further 'interpretation'. Some people have used grids of miniature figures to illustrate probabilities - a 10x10 array of figures shaded in two colours. This is said to make probabilities easier to grasp but it's relatively expensive to program into the website and basically I can't afford it at present - especially when there has not been much in the way of obvious demand and there are many other things about the site that we could spend money on.
It does ask about morning symptoms and you answered yes to that question
It also asks about splint usage. I think you took this rather literally when it asks has your GP given you a splint and you answered no. Had you answered yes then it would have gone to ask you whether they helped. We might have to alter the wording of that question slightly now that quite a few patients are being told to go and buy their own but most people do seem to get the idea that we don't really care how you got a splint - we just want to know whether you have tried one and whether it helped. Answering the splint question with a report that it helps the symptoms will bump up your chance of having CTS a bit but no single question dominates the system's assessment of whether you have CTS so one misunderstood question/answer is not a big deal. JB