How to diagnose muscle atrophy

Muscular atrophy is quite common in our daily life. It mainly refers to nutritional disorders of skeletal muscles, which leads to a significant reduction in muscle volume. The symptoms of muscle atrophy are relatively obvious. Of course, you still need to go to the hospital for diagnosis in time and undergo certain examinations to see whether you have muscle atrophy. Only in this way can you carry out targeted treatment. This disease sometimes poses a great threat to your health.

How to diagnose muscle atrophy

1. Electromyography (EMG). 2. Nerve conduction velocity, including motor nerve conduction velocity, sensory nerve conduction velocity, F wave, and H reflex. 3. Evoked potentials, including brainstem auditory evoked potentials, visual evoked potentials, and upper and lower limb sensory evoked potentials. 4. Manual muscle strength test. 5. Muscle tension test. 6.Muscle circumference measurement.

Clinical manifestations

1. Thigh muscle atrophy is mainly quadriceps atrophy. It is common for patients with femoral head necrosis and lower limb immobilization to have thigh muscle atrophy. All patients with middle and late stage femoral head necrosis have thigh muscle atrophy in the affected limb. The severity of muscle atrophy varies. Most disuse-related thigh muscle atrophy can be recovered, but in a few cases of femoral head necrosis, thigh muscle atrophy cannot be recovered throughout life, which seriously affects the patient's walking distance and quality of life. 2. Calf muscle atrophy refers to skeletal muscle dystrophy, in which the muscle volume is smaller than normal, the muscle fibers become thinner or even disappear. 3. Shoulder girdle muscle atrophy is the symptom and clinical manifestation of progressive proximal muscular atrophy of the limbs. Progressive proximal muscular atrophy of the limbs is often myogenic atrophy, which is more obvious in the proximal limbs and trunk muscles, and often manifests as atrophy and weakness of the shoulder girdle muscles and pelvic girdle muscles.

4. Myogenic facial muscle atrophy is caused by diseases of the muscles themselves, and may also include some other factors. For example, patients with shoulder girdle or facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy are confirmed to have spinal muscular atrophy through morphological examination. On the other hand, when any part of the lower motor neuron is damaged, the acetylcholine released from its terminals is reduced, the nutritional effect of the sympathetic nerves is weakened, and muscle atrophy occurs. 5. Atrophy of the interosseous muscles and thenar muscles usually begins with weakness and gradual atrophy of the small muscles in the hands, which may affect one or both sides, or start on one side and then spread to the other side. The palm becomes flat due to atrophy of the thenar and hypothenar muscles, and the hand becomes claw-shaped due to atrophy of the interosseous muscles. Muscle atrophy spreads upward, gradually affecting the forearm, upper arm and shoulder girdle. Fasciculations are common and may be confined to certain muscle groups or widespread and are easily induced by slapping the hands. In a few cases, muscular atrophy and weakness may start from the tibialis anterior and peroneus muscles of the lower limbs or from the extensor muscles of the neck. In some cases, it may also start from the proximal muscles of the upper and lower limbs.

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