What would be more painful for someone with carpal tunnel syndrome?
Playing the guitar or playing the piano?
Whichever involves more bending of the wrists. I would guess playing the piano.
Generally piano players keep their wrists fairly stiff; the only major wrist motion is side-to-side, and not all that much of it. I’d say guitar-playing would be more painful. Any CTS sufferers who play both?
Is the sufferer bi-laterally affected, or just one hand? This would make a big difference.
If only one hand was affected, you could still play the guitar fairly confortably. You could cord with the unaffected hand and strum with the affected - unless you are picking or fingering frantically the motion required is very little.
Whereas, if bi-laterally affected piano would be more painful as you are required to move all fingers and both wrists.
It may also come down to how long one plays. If it’s just a tune or two or hours at a time. Both would impact CT greatly if playing for hours.
Just my WAG… I’ve had Carpal Tunnel surgery on both hands but play neither instrument (used to play guitar yonks ago but not now).
I have carpal tunnel syndrome in my left arm, and find guitar playing pretty much impossible. You see, I can’t feel my pinky or ring finger at all, and even though I don’t use them that much, they fumble all over the place. Also, bending the elbow and wrist to fit the fretboard sets off my funny bone like crazy. I haven’t tried the piano as I don’t play, but I imagine it would be much the same as typing. Possible to do with correct posture, but difficult because of the numb fingers.
CTS is arguably caused by an inflamation in a small tunnel at the base of your hand formed on three sides by carpal bones (tiny wrist bones) and one side by a ligament. Unfortunatley, the nerves and tendons that get pinched in this area are mostly for the fingers. So significant wrist motion actually seems to have little to do with CTS. For example, most typists who develop CTS hardly move their wrists at all. The combination of the forearm-hand (wrist) angle and the constant finger motion (firing nerves and pulling tendons through the carpal tunnel) seems to cause the problem. If you have CTS, playing either piano or guitar is likely to be painful or difficult.
Having worked in a wrist biomechanics lab, I have to apologize for the “seems to” and “apparently” wording. However, I do not believe that any research has conclusively shown the right links between motion and CTS to indicate what the causal factors actually are. A search on www.pubmed.com will show you 30 cites from 30 different research labs, with 30 different opinions.
In some rather rare cases (one of which I’m related to), CTS can be caused by a deviant muscle that grows through the carpal tunnel. In the case I know about, the person was an avid piano player and built up the muscles in her hand, including the one that was growing where it shouldn’t be. Her CTS was primarily caused by an overgrown internal hand muscle that had taken a short cut through the carpal tunnel and was pinching out the nerves and tendons.
The reason I ask is…
There is a rumor that Bob Dylan has CTS.
On his last tour he played a lot less guitar and started playing piano more.
Word around the campfire is that playing guitar became too painful for him, so he switched to piano.