Starter

Very helpfull

A very comprehensive resource for anyone involved with CTS - both patients and professionals.
From my own experience as a patient (now diagnosed with CTS) I think many doctors could benefit from updating their CTS knowledge on this website.

As an IT support tech and webmaster myself - I would say the design of the website is very clear and the website functions very smoothly.

Excellent website. Consider dividing it up more obviously so that there is a part where patients can get basic information about CTS. Another part giving information about the arrangements in Kent. A third part with all the deep debate about genetics, double crush, biochemistry etc which is good for us doctors but will leave patients behind. There is no reason to block patient access to this if they really want it.

Suggest a "next page" tab at the bottom of each page, otherwise one is tempted to click one of the links. The first page is find but at the bottom there is a link to 'When surgery fails'. This is not the first thing patients want to know.

Diagram - Anatomical convention is that nerves are yellow and arteries red.
A diagram of the sensory distribution of the median nerve might be better than a description. Terms medial and lateral are confusing with respect to the hand unless you know the formal anatomical position (and patients don't).

Reassurance - Many patients have an unspoken fear that a tingling hand is due to a brain tumour, MS, heart attack a form of paralysis or cancer. They often have known someone who had vaguely similar symptoms and died or became very ill. To allay these fears is much more use to them than a splint. "OK, I can put up with it Doc now I know it is not more serious."

I have not seen a better site.

Thanks for the comments Mike. I'm keeping the overall layout of the site under review but I don't want to change the main Drupal structure which I quite like - I can move pages around. The intention was for the page /about-cts to be the 'basic version' for patients and to allow the site visitor to branch out from there and explore as deeply as they wished. I will keep thinking about it but I don't really want to split into three effectively separate sites.

I may well add a 'next' link at the bottom of the page where it makes sense to follow on directly - not all of them do of course. The surgery warning at the botttom of the first page is semi-deliberate as I think the risks of carpal tunnel surgery are frequently underestimated. It is also a topic which patients are actively seeking - several individuals have found their way to the site via search engines after entering queries about failed surgery.

The diagram colours are partly a function of colour reproduction on my scanner and partly the fact that this drawing had to be recognisably different from the copyright original it is modelled after. I may well add more diagrams when I can afford them!

The reassurance point is a good one but I am not sure how I can address the issue very much via the site - I will think about it. At present the questionnaire will at least tell the user that their symptoms are likely (or unlikely) to be due to CTS.