Myelopathy - How To Track It?

Myelopathy refers to any neurological deficit in the spinal cord. The three most common types of myelopathy are cervical myelopathy, lumbar myelopathy and thoracic myelopathy. Here are the causes and symptoms of myelopathy.

Myelopathy usually is a very slowly progressive disorder. Often patients present to a doctor late owing to this fact and also because they attribute most of their symptoms to age. For example, a patient who has difficulty in controlling his urge to pass urine and occassionally wetting his clothes in the process often thinks his prostate or her recurrent urinary tract infection is the cause.

Its difficult for a patient to differentiate neurological incontinence of urine from prostatism or infection. Poor balance and recurrent falls especially when visibility is low, like at night, is also often misattributed to cataract or age or dementia or sometimes even Parkinsonism.

A proper clinical examination usually provides several pointers of myelopathy and an MRI can easily confirm the cause. Surgery is often needed which can provide dramatic relief in most of symptoms but is more important to prevent further deterioration which is otherwise likely.

Causes

1. Injury
This is a very common cause of myelopathy. Any type of accident or even a traumatic event can cause myelopathy and perhaps even paralysis.

2. Spinal stenosis
This is a condition in which the spinal cord narrows. It is one of the leading causes of myelopathy.

3. Degenerative disc disorders
As you get older, these get more likely as well as other conditions which affect the spinal column such as osteoporosis.

4. Tumor
It is a little known fact that tumors very often do cause myelopathy.

5. Multiple sclerosis
There are many other diseases which may cause myelopathy and multiple sclerosis is one of them.

Symptoms

There are many indications that you are having a form of myelopathy and should consult a medical expert. Here are some of them.

1.Changes in coordination
What this means is that all of a sudden you may find it harder to move certain limbs the way you want to. Sometimes, this can affect the whole body.

2.Sudden muscle weakness
It is highly likely that if you have myelopathy then you will have sudden weakness in your muscles.

3.Decreased hand-eye coordination
This is perhaps the biggest indicator of myelopathy since hand eye coordination is directly linked to your spinal cord and brain and if they are not functioning properly then hand-eye coordination will be worse.

These are just some of the symptoms of myelopathy, however the doctor cannot diagnose myelopathy until he does certain tests. These tests include MRI scans and other tests as well as a regular physical check-up in addition to a look at your medical history.