BIOTECHNOLOGY : Device to Diagnose Carpal-Tunnel Disease Sells Well, Firm Says

A Tustin company reports brisk sales of its newest line of equipment used to diagnose carpal-tunnel syndrome--a repetitive-stress injury linked to the increased use of computers in the workplace.

David Gaddes, director of marketing at Neuro Diagnostics Inc., a division of Luther Medical Products, said orders are 50% ahead of projections for its new electromyograph machine. The device measures electric voltages emitted by nerves and muscles.

By placing an electrode on a patient, he said, a nerve can be electrically stimulated and the voltage tracked as it moves along the nerve’s length. The speed of the electrical current, he said, can indicate whether there is any nerve damage. Carpal-tunnel syndrome is caused by repeated wrist movement common to workers who spend long hours at computer terminals, grocery store checkers, or dockworkers and others who do a lot of heavy lifting.

In the last year, Gaddes said, some employers have begun requiring applicants for jobs that use extensive wrist movement to be tested with an electromyograph to determine if they have a predisposition to carpal-tunnel syndrome.

In addition, he said, in recent years application of electromyographs to the brain and spinal chord has started to be widely used to diagnose multiple sclerosis, senile dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

A drawback of the technology, Gaddes said, is that its application generally is painful. Neuro Diagnostics’ newest equipment minimizes that problem, he said, because it can be applied more quickly and accurately than in previous models. He said the machine, about the size of a portable personal computer, is being sold to hospitals, the Department of Defense, the Veterans Administration and private physicians and clinics.