Diagnostic Methods in Piriformis Syndrome

Abstract

An uncomon cause of sciatica is piriformis syndrome, that involves deep buttock pain reffered to the leg. Piriformis syndrome is usually discribed as a neuromuscular disorder caused by compression or irritation of the sciatic nerve by the piriformis muscle. There are a lot of means to diagnose Piriformis syndrome, and to distinguish it from other pain inducing conditions. Unfortunatelly not every practitioner has the opportunity to use special means, and not every patient has the financial support to beneficiate of the same special means, represented by Computed tomography (CT), Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), Electromyography (EMG) and Neurography. For this reason, the present paper gathered the most popular functional tests used in the practice to diagnose the piriformis syndrome