A study was conducted on the clinical features of hand-arm vibration syndrome. The subjects consisted of 69 patients who were medically examined from January 1997 to 2004.
They were evaluated for patient age, time and period of using vibrater, clinical symptoms, physical findings, complications, medical history, and X-ray examination. The evaluation results were mean age of 65.2 years, mean vibrater using time of 9832 hours, and mean period of vibrater use of 24.4 years. Clinical symptoms included finger and antebrachium numbness (100%), stiffening (98.6%), cold feeling (95.7%), pain (92.8%), palm sweating (92.8%), and insomnia (92.8%).
Physical findings were imperception (100%), palm sweating and sleeping disturbance (92.8%), and intermittent claudication / lower limb numbness (18.8%). Raynaud's phenomenon was found in five patients (7.2%). Complications included hearing loss (92.8%), peumoconiosis (24.6%), and malignant disease (4.3%).
Peripheral circulatory disorder, peripheral neuropathy, and motility were jeen in all patients. Intractability of perceptual disorder was the most common problem. Dysgraphia was 92.8%. Sleep electroencephalogram wave was normal while the most abnormal aspect was the pattern and course of each sleeping stage. According to literature, autonomic nerve dysrhythmia is connected with the central nervous system in some ways. In terms of work-related disorders, vibration disorder was found in 23.2% of abnormal X-ray findings. Previous studies indicated that there is no relation ships between clinical symptoms and X-ray findings. Image diagnosis is therefore very important.