Hirayama disease.

This article discusses three patients with likely Hirayama disease. They have no other significant past medical history and no personal or family history of other neurological disorders. Hirayama disease is a form of cervical myelopathy attributed to forward displacement of the posterior cervical dural sac on neck flexion with resultant cord compression and/or venous congestion.

Guillain-Barré syndrome following pandemic (H1N1) 2009 influenza A immunisation in Victoria: a self-controlled case series.

Objectives: To determine the relative incidence (RI) of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) in a single Australian state following pandemic (H1N1) 2009 influenza A immunisation (monovalent vaccine or seasonal trivalent influenza vaccine [TIV]) in 2009-2010.

Design, Setting And Participants: Active GBS surveillance (cases assessed by two neurologists according to the Brighton criteria) from 30 September 2009 to 30 September 2010, conducted at 10 hospitals in Victoria, Australia.

Main Outcome Measures: The RI of GBS in the risk window of 0-42 days after vaccination.

Strength and conditioning for triathletes.

Strength exercises for the knee, shoulder, and the core are essential to help prevent injuries to triathletes. This article will outline the most common exercises to strength the major joints and flexibility exercises to maintain range of motion of the joints.

Painful numb hands.

Carpal tunnel syndrome, resulting from median nerve compression at the wrist, is a common and often disabling mononeuropathy. Risk factors include female sex, family history, repetitive hand use, obesity, pregnancy and a variety of medical comorbidities including diabetes mellitus, rheumatoid arthritis, and other connective tissue diseases. In many cases, an accurate diagnosis can be reached on the basis of clinical history and supportive examination findings alone.

A unique case of cortical myoclonus sensitive to visual stimuli in the peripersonal space.

Multimodal representation of peripersonal or near space has been demonstrated in the brain of the nonhuman primate through invasive electrophysiological experiments. Representation of peripersonal space in the human brain has been inferred from extinction experiments and functional imaging studies. We present a unique case of lower limb myoclonus in a patient with common variable immunodeficiency which is sensitive to visual stimuli in the peripersonal space and light touch.

Psychogenic propriospinal myoclonus.

We report a case of probable psychogenic propriospinal myoclonus (PSM) in a patient who developed a sudden onset of disabling axial flexor myoclonus following a cosmetic surgical procedure. The electrophysiological findings were consistent with previous reports of PSM. Spontaneous remissions and disappearance of the jerks, sustained for 2 years, following removal of superficial surgical screws support the diagnosis of a psychogenic movement disorder.

Development of neuropathy in patients with myeloma treated with thalidomide: patterns of occurrence and the role of electrophysiologic monitoring.

Purpose: Peripheral neuropathy frequently limits the duration of treatment with thalidomide for patients with multiple myeloma. We assessed the time course of occurrence, possible predictive factors, and the utility of serial nerve electrophysiological studies (NES) for detecting onset of neuropathy.

Patients And Methods: Seventy-five patients with relapsed/refractory myeloma were enrolled onto a multicenter trial of dose-escalating thalidomide with or without interferon.

Rippling muscle disease.

A case of rippling muscle disease is presented and features of this rare condition, and its association with caveolin-3 are discussed.

Speech-activated myoclonus: an uncommon form of action myoclonus.

We describe an unusual form of facial myoclonus activated by speech in 3 patients with different underlying neurological diseases and present the electrophysiological investigations and results of structural and functional imaging. In 1 of 2 patients in whom jerk-locked electroencephalogram (EEG) back-averaging was done, a cortical potential clearly preceded the facial jerks. In the second patient, a cortical potential preceding the jerk was not certain.