Please wait while the transcript is being prepared...
0:00
Hello, my name is
Dr. Hans Katzberg,
I'm a neurologist and Associate Professor
of Medicine at the University of Toronto.
I work at the Prosserman Centre
for Neuromuscular Diseases,
and I'm going to be speaking
about muscle cramps today.
I'd like to title this
first talk, Crampology 101,
where I will focus on
the pathophysiology
and diagnosis of muscle cramps.
We'll focus on treatment
in the next set of slides.
0:28
The objectives today are to
define firstly, muscle cramps;
in particular, we'll be
focusing on neurogenic
muscle cramps
as these are more common
in contrast to a
myopathic muscle cramp,
which has a different
electrical signature
and different and
distinct kind of pattern.
I would like to also
talk a little bit about
other hyper-excitable
neurological phenomena.
This is relevant to
not only clinicians
but also to electrophysiologists
who are able to
identify electrical
activity from
muscles when they do
electromyography.
Then, I'll talk a
little bit about
the pathophysiology
that leads to
these muscle cramps
and particularly
focusing on
electrophysiological features.
1:08
I'll start with a clinical case.
This is a 46-year-old man
who was previously healthy
and complains of tightness in
his legs for the last year.
These episodes occur and
are defined as episodes.
However, it can occur
at any time without
a trigger frequently at
the end of exercise.
The questions through
this clinical case are,
what is the definition of
a muscle cramp and what is
the differential
diagnosis in regards to
phenomenology and how does one
distinguish these
different entities?
In regards to this case,
it is somewhat vague on purpose
because these are the
difficulties that one gets.
One encounters patients who may
not know what you mean
when you were talking
about muscle cramps and they may
sometimes define
things as tightness,
which is rather non-specific.
One feature, as I've mentioned,
is that the patient is
describing these as episodes.
I think helps to distinguish
cramps which do occur in
very distinct episodes from
other more nonspecific
and extended phenomena,
or discomfort or pain,
which can happen.
The fact that these
happened frequently at
the end of exercising,
maybe your clue as well,
that these own fact
neurogenic muscle cramps as
dehydration can lead
to these phenomena.
