Assessment of Functional Outcomes of Open Carpal Tunnel Release Through the QuickDASH Questionnaire in Patients With Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: An Observational Retrospective Study

Purpose Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is the most common compressive neuropathy of peripheral nerves. The symptoms include numbness, paresthesia, night pain, and weakness of grip and/or hand function. Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are now one of the most effective tools for the assessment of functional outcomes after CTS release. QuickDASH (a shortened, 11-item version of the Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand (DASH) questionnaire) has evolved as one of the best questionnaire-based patient-reported outcome measure tools commonly used nowadays. Materials and methods We studied 35 patients from January 2023 to December 2025 at our institute. Diagnosis of CTS was based purely on clinical examinations and neurophysiological studies. The results were assessed and compared using QuickDASH questionnaire scores on two occasions: one preoperatively and another six months post-procedure. Results Patients were predominantly female (88.57%). Most patients were in the 41-60-year age group (51.43%). A total of 94.29% (n = 33) of individuals were right-hand dominant. Hand-specific disease laterality was 20 (57.14%) right hands and 15 (42.86%) left hands out of 35 hands. A total of 77.14% of patients showed a QuickDASH score below 25 at six months post-surgery, whereas 85.72% had scored above 50 during preoperative evaluation. Conclusion The QuickDASH questionnaire is a well-established and convenient tool to assess CTS outcomes. The study suggests that surgical decompression provides excellent improvement and results in all study subjects. However, even within the DASH scores, there is inter-item variability, with some points having better outcomes than others. This must be emphasized during preoperative patient counseling.