Hand numbness …..
what are the causes?

"I have hand numbness on the right.
What’s causing it?"

Sensory disturbance in the hand (tingling or numbness) may occur from anything which disturbs the sensory pathway from the receptors in the skin until the final point of perception in the brain:-

Approached systematically problems in the following places in the nervous system can cause this:-

1) Skin (eg. following a severe burn)
2) Nerves
————e.g. trapped median nerve (as in “carpal tunnel syndrome” )
————e.g. trapped ulnar nerve at the elbow
————e.g. problem in the nerve roots coming out of the spinal cord in the neck or lower part of the brachial plexus (bundle of nerves near the arm-pit)
3) Spinal cord (neck area)
4) Brain (usually the opposite side to the hand affected).

The sensory pathways are dealt with in our lectures on the neurological examination and in our clinical neuroanatomy lecture focusing on the brainstem .

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