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Electrodiagnosis:
The testing of the “electrical circuits” of the human nervous system.
Since the late 1930’s this system of checking nerve pathways has been used to determine the presence of various kinds and locations of human nerve injuries. The equipment used to this testing has become smaller, and is computer-assisted. The principles for testing have largely remained unchanged over the decades. What once took a room full of equipment sequestered away in copper-shielded electrodiagnostic laboratories, now requires devices about the size of a briefcase.
The process of analysis is performed in two stages:
I. Surface contacts are taped onto the skin (usually of the arms or legs) and a low-power electric pulse is applied to the skin over specific nerves. It feels something like someone is thumping over your “funny bone”. This makes the nerve under study give off an impulse and allows study of the time delay, strength of impulse, and speed of the impulse. This is done to multiple nerves and yields a lot of clinical understanding of what may be causing nerve damage.
II. The second portion of the test involves using a very thin Teflon-coated wire to read the electrical activity of muscles in the extremities and spine. This is a lot like checking the lamps in one’s house to determine whether one’s lamp failure is due to wiring problems in the walls or in the fuse-box. As a result of the pointed Teflon-coated wire being very thin, little discomfort is experienced in the process of testing.
This diagnostic procedure is often helpful in sorting our which of the possible sources of pain may be causing difficulties. It is but one of the tools a physician may use in conjunction with other tests to find the source of pain, and determine means of treatment.
Dr. William Dodson
Last Updated 03/16/2008
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