PERIPHERAL NERVE CONDUCTION IN DIABETIC NEUROPATHY

Abstract

The estimation of motor nerve conduction velocity and the direct recording of nerve action potentials are now well established electrodiagnostic pro-cedures, and this paper is concerned with their application to patients with diabetic neuropathy. It is already known that in these patients motor conduction velocity may become slow (Ferrari-Forcade, Temesio, and Gomensoro, 1960; Mulder, Lambert, Bastron, and Sprague, 1961; Skillman, Johnson, Hamwi, and Driskill, 1961) and that nerve action potentials may be lost (Gilliatt, Goodman, and Willison, 1961), these changes being similar to those found in other forms of peripheral neuropathy. For the present paper we have selected a small number of diabetic patients who have been exten-sively investigated, with the object of relating the electrical findings to the particular clinical features of individual cases. METHODS The methods used for estimating motor conduction velocity and for recording nerve action potentials have been fully described in previous publications (Gilliatt and Sears, 1958; Thomas, Sears, and Gilliatt, 1959; Gilliatt et al., 1961). For the measurement of the latency of the knee jerk a special patellar hammer was constructed containing a micro-switch to trigger the oscilloscope; the electrical response of the quadriceps muscle was then recorded through surface electrodes as described by Malcolm (1951) and by Bergamini and Sibour (1960). RESULTS