Motor System Testing Flashcards
(45 cards)
What does the spastic hemiparesis gait look like?
- Unilateral upper motor neuron disease
- Arm flexed
- Leg outward and forward often with dragging toe
What does the scissor gait look like?
- Spastic paresis bilateral legs
- Thighs cross each other
What does the stoppage gait look like?
- Lower motor neuron disease
- Usually foot drop
- Feet are lifted high with flexed knees
- Feet slap floor
What does sensory ataxia gait look like?
- Loss of position sense in legs
- Gait is unsteady and wide base
- Feet are lifted high and slapped
What does the cerebellar gait look like?
- Staggering unsteady
- Widebased gait
- Difficulty turning
What does the Parkinsonian gait look like?
- Basal ganglia defects
- Posture stoked
- Hips and knees flexed
- Short shuffling steps
- Turns all in one piece
What are fasiculations?
- Visible twitching muscle bundle movements
*signs of lower motor neuron disease
What are tremors
Involuntary rhythmic movements that may be more pronounced at rest
What are tics?
Repetitive muscle twitching
*brief, repetitive, stereotyped, coordinated movements occurring at irregular intervals
What is chorea?
- Involuntary movements
- Rapid, jerky, irregular, unpredictable
What is athetosis
Abnormal muscle contractions causing involuntary writhing movements
What is myoclonus
- Involuntary
- Sudden very rapid unpredictable jerks, faster than Chorea
What is asterixis
Involuntary brief loss of hand and finger muscles resulting in flapping of hands
*indicate encephalopathy
*unilateral indicates structural disease on contralateral side of brain
When does Babinski sign disappear?
Around 24 months
What is a decorticate rigidity
Arms/elbows are in a flexed position
What are intention tremors?
Tremors that are absent at rest, appear with movement and often get worse as the target gets closer
Patient is unable to maintain abduction of their fingers- which nerve is involved?
Ulnar nerve
What is spasticity?
Velocity-dependent increased tone that worsens at extremes of range
What is dysmetria?
Difficulty with complex movements needing coordination
What is hemiplegia?
- One side paralysis
*leg lies externally rotated
*arm is flaccid
What is decerebrate rigidity?
- Jaws are clenched
- Neck is extended
- Arms are adducted and stiffly extended at the elbows with forearms pronated, wrists and fingers flexed
- Feet are plantar flexed
What will happen to the face if there is a peripheral lesion of CN VII?
- Eye will not close, eyeball rolls up
- Flat nasolabial fold
- Forehead will not wrinkle, eyebrow will not raise
- There will be paralysis of lower face
What will happen to the face if there is a central lesion of CN VII?
- Eye will close (slight weakness)
- Flat nasolabial fold
- Forehead wrinkled, eyebrow will raise
- There will be paralysis of lower face
What are postural tremors?
- These tremors appear when the affected part is actively maintaining a posture
