Abstract
Recently diagnosis of lumbar spinal desease has been made using radiological imaging techniques such as myelography, CTM, and MRI. Lumbar spinal diseases consist of both structural abnormalities and nerve damage, therefore electromyography is essential for diagnosis. We examined the conduction velocity and amplitude of SNAPs of the saphenous nerve, superficial peroneal nerve and sural nerve, and investigated the effects of increasing age on these. Nerves from 50 healthy subjects were studied and the mean conduction velocities and amplitudes were respectively, : saphenous nerve, 54.6±2.5m/s, 19.5±4.8μV: superficial peroneal nerve, 54.8±2.2m/s, 14.9±4.4μV: sural nerve, 52.4±2.8m/s, 5.44±1.0μV. The decline in conduction velocity and amplitude of these nerves with increasing age was more remarlable in patients over 50 years of age.
Electrophysiological investigation of distal sensory nerves is a useful method of determining the site of nerve lesions, but we should give careful consideration to the effects of age.
