Abstract

HERNANDEZ HERNANDEZ, Aymeé. Role of neurophysiological studies in the differential diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and cervical spondylotic myelopathy. Acta Neurol Colomb. [online]. 2013, vol.29, n.1, pp.53-59. ISSN 0120-8748.

Amytrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a degenerative and progressive disease. Motoneurone of central nervous system are affected. It has an insidious start, and is more frequently in men. Patients suffer of muscular weakness and atrophy, hyperreflexia, Babinski sign, fasciculations of the muscles, it prognosis is reserved. One of the most important differential diagnoses is the compression of the spinal cord by spondylosis, neurophysiologic tests are very important in this differentiation and magnetic resonance images confirm last condition. This paper show a case, who's had presumptive diagnostic of amytrophic lateral sclerosis, but neurophysiologic tests results doubt this diagnosis and suggested spinal compression at cervical region, magnetic resonance images (MRI) confirmed severe cervical spondilotic mielopathy. In conclusion neurophysiologic tests have an important roll to differentiate between amytrophic lateral sclerosis and cervical spondilotic myelopathy.

Keywords : Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis ALS; Spinal Cord Disease; Neurophysiology.

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