Sensory changes after nerve blocks

When patients have to undergo surgery on the extremities (arms and legs), one popular option is regional anesthesia. Nerves are blocked, allowed operating on a numb extremity, and providing pain relief after the surgery. Nerve injuries are rare, and they usually resolve on their own within a few weeks. Our project aims at doing a fine assessment of the sensation at the fingertips before and after hand surgery under regional or general anesthesia, and seeing whether there is a change, too subtle to be felt by the patient, but present. This could allow avoiding regional anesthesia in patients who have pre-existing abnormal sensation, again too subtle for them to realize it.

We need to purchase monofilament kits, sets of nylon filaments of various sizes mounted on rods that are used to perform the assessment. They cost about $100 per set and we will need 8 of them for the various locations and offices where the patients are seen.

We are anesthesiologists and hand surgeons affiliated with NYU School of Medicine.