Also known as Tinel's sign, Tinel's sign of formication, Tinel's symptom, and Hoffmann-Tinel sign. The eponym Tinel-Hoffmann sign refers to the French neurologist Jules Tinel (18791952), and the German physiologist Paul Hoffmann (1884-1962), who both contributed to the description of the concomitant phenomenon in 1915. The Tinel-Hoffmann sign involves a tingling feeling (referred to as a " paraesthesia or " formication) that may be experienced in the cutaneous distribution of a damaged nerve when the nerve is tapped lightly with a finger or tendon hammer. The presence of the Tinel-Hoffmann sign is considered prognostically favourable in compressed or regenerating peripheral nerves, as in the carpal tunnel syndrome, for example.
References
Hoffmann, P. (1915). Über eine Methode, den Erfolg einer Nervennaht zu beurteilen. Medizinische Klinik, 1915, 11, 359-360.
Tinel, J. (1915). Le signe du fourmillement dans les lésions des nerfs périphériques. La Presse Médicale, 23, 388-389.
Dictionary of Hallucinations. J.D. Blom. 2010.