Type and frequency of peripheral nerve injuries encountered in a clinical neurophysiology laboratory.

Clinical and electrophysiologic findings on 136 patients (39 women and 97 men; mean age = 33.2 years) with traumatic peripheral nerve injuries were reviewed. Motor vehicular collisions (MVCs) caused 39.7% and gunshot wounds (GSWs) produced 32.4% of the nerve injuries studied. Other factors such as falls, lacerations, work-related injuries, knife wounds, and blunt traumas produced the remaining 27.9% of the nerve injuries in the study group. Peripheral nerves of the upper limbs (79.6%) were disproportionately damaged in MVCs compared with those of the lower limbs (20.4 %). In MVCs, the brachial plexus was involved in 37.0% and radial nerve in 22.2% of the cases. Patients with GSWs were predominantly men (88.6%) and slightly younger (mean age = 28.7 years). The frequencies of peripheral nerve injuries to the upper extremities (52.3%) and lower extremities (45.5%) were nearly similar in GSWs. The sciatic nerve was involved in 34.1% of GSWs, followed by the ulnar nerve (22.7%).

Correlation between the size of the compound muscle and sensory nerve action potentials recorded from the foot in distal axonopathy.

Nerve conduction study was performed on 71 diabetic patients with distal sensorimotor axonopathy. Of 76 lower limbs studied, 46.1% showed no recordable sural compound sensory nerve action potential (CSNAP), and 55.3% no superficial peroneal CSNAP. Only 2.6% revealed no recordable compound muscle action potential (CMAP) from the abductor hallucis (AH) muscle, and 9.2% showed no obtainable CMAP from the extensor digitorum brevis (EDB) muscle. There were fairly good positive correlations between the amplitudes of the sural CSNAPs and AH CMAPs (r = 0.66), and between the superficial peroneal CSNAP and EDB CMAP amplitudes (r = 0.63). There were no instances in which a CSNAP could be obtained from the sural or superficial peroneal sensory nerve, but a CMAP could not be recorded from the AH or EDB muscle. If the CMAP amplitudes of the AH and EDB muscles were reduced to less than 0.3 mV, usually a CSNAP could longer be recorded from the sural and superficial peroneal sensory nerves. The size of the CSNAP is a more sensitive measure compared to the CMAP in revealing the presence of distal sensorimotor axonopathy.

An evaluation of waist to hip ratio measurement methods in relation to lipid and carbohydrate metabolism in men.

The purpose of this study was to determine which method of measuring waist to hip ratio (WHR) was the most effective in assessing decrements associated with an abdominal fat distribution in 46 non-obese, middle to older aged men (mean +/- s.e., age 52.8 +/- 0.88 years; body fat 19.7 +/- 0.72 percent). Circumferences were obtained at the following sites and WHR calculated (waist circumference/hip circumference): (1) minimal waist/maximal hip; (2) level of umbilicus/maximal hip; (3) level of umbilicus/level of greater trochanters; (4) level of umbilicus/level of superior iliac spine; and (5) level of 1/3 of the distance between the xiphiod process and umbilicus/level 4 cm below the superior iliac spine. Significant (P less than 0.05) associations were observed for measurement methods 1, 2 and 3 with indices of lipid and carbohydrate metabolism, body composition, and fitness level. Measurement method 5 was not related to any metabolic or physiological variables, while measurement method 4 was intermediate in terms of the strength of the associations. These findings suggest that the predictive strength of WHR can vary depending upon the measurement method used.