Electromyography and Nerve Conduction Velocity |In Depth
选举（EMG）测试
Nerve conduction studies (NCS) and electromyography (EMG) help your child’s doctor see how his nerves and muscles are working. Together, these tests are often called “EMG testing.”
EMG测试可以帮助您的孩子的医疗团队诊断许多不同的神经肌肉和肌肉疾病。这些测试还用于检查您的孩子的神经和肌肉如何在后来被诊断并接受治疗后如何发挥作用。
EMG testing can help diagnose and evaluate a variety of disorders that affect your child’s peripheral nervous system, such as:
- Muscular Dystrophy (MD)
- other myopathiesincluding congenital myopathies, glycogen storage diseases and other metabolic myopathies, polymyositis and dermatomyositis
- neuropathiesincluding Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease,Guillain Barre综合征, chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (CIDP) and Friedreich ataxia
- traumatic nerve injuriesincluding accidents and sports injuries
- brachial plexus birth palsy (Erb’s palsy)
- motor neuron diseases(anterior horn cell diseases) includingspinal muscular atrophy
- neuromuscular junction disordersincluding肌无力重症, congenital myasthenic syndromes and botulism
Nerve conduction studies (NCS)
The first part of the study, NCS, measures how electrical signals travel through your child’s nerves. This part usually takes about 30 to 45 minutes.
一名医生将三个电极（贴纸）放在孩子的身体（通常是他的手臂或腿）上。然后，医生使用刺激器通过孩子的神经发送少量电流。这并不痛苦；当您穿过地毯并触摸金属门把手时，您会在冬季经历的感觉就像是静电。电极记录了如何强烈和迅速发出信号穿过孩子的神经。该测量称为nerve conduction velocity (NCV)。
Electromyography (EMG)
研究的第二部分，肌电图（EMG）记录了穿越孩子肌肉的信号。测试中的信息称为electromyogram。An EMG usually takes no more than 15 minutes.
医生将非常薄的针料电极（与针灸中使用的针相似），将其放入一个或多个孩子的肌肉中。发生这种情况时，您的孩子会感到很小的捏。然后，医生在肌肉休息时进行录音，如果可能的话，您的孩子移动肌肉。您的孩子不会通过针头接受任何电刺激；这只是一个测量设备。
This part of the study is sometimes uncomfortable, so our doctors always try to balance the need for information with the comfort of your child. If your child becomes really uncomfortable, your doctor may decide to stop the study early.
我们经常将EMG针头描述为“麦克风”，因为我们实际上通过扬声器聆听电信号的声音。许多孩子对crack啪作响的噪音产生了兴趣。实际上，孩子们经常对肌肉听起来的想法（例如屋顶上的雨，龙虾船或摩托车）提供想法。大多数孩子都会忍受研究而没有太多麻烦，尤其是与他们的父母一起在实验室中。
Specialized testing
In some cases, we perform specialized forms of EMG testing in order to answer specific questions your child’s doctor may have. These specialized tests may make the study take slightly longer than the usual timeframe of one hour.
我们执行的一项专业测试是单纤维EMG，该测试可以帮助诊断出一种称为的疾病肌无力重症。
If your child needs an extended version of these tests, we may perform her EMG in our一日手术单元using general anesthesia.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about Electromyography and Nerve Conduction Velocity
Q: Is EMG testing painful?
A：The stimuli in nerve conduction studies (NCS) feel like static electricity (like when you walk across a carpet and touch a metal doorknob). The electromyography (EMG) portion of the test may be a bit painful for some children. But many children become distracted by the crackling sound of their muscles’ electrical activity and are able to tolerate the study without too much difficulty.
Q: What kind of information does the study give?
A：These tests help your child’s doctor see how his nerves and muscles are working. NCS measures how electrical signals travel through the nerves, and EMG records the signals moving through the muscles. This information can help your child’s doctor diagnose many different neuromuscular and muscular disorders.
问：我的孩子可以镇静吗？
A：在大多数情况下，我们可以更快地执行此测试，如果您的孩子没有镇静或在麻醉下获得更好的信息。幸运的是，大多数孩子都很好地容忍了这项研究。我们所有的医生和技术人员都在努力帮助您的孩子了解测试并安慰他。让你和他在一起也有很大帮助。
有时，当我们觉得使用全身麻醉获得更好的信息时，我们可能会安排您的孩子的EMG测试一日手术单元。On rare occasions in which a child comes to the EMG laboratory but can’t tolerate the study (such as for some very young children), we may reschedule it in the Day Surgery Unit so it can be done under general anesthesia. General anesthesia is associated with a small risk of complications, which is why we don’t use it on a routine basis for this study.
Q: Will my child miss school as a result of this study?
A：The test usually only takes an hour, and most children return to school the same day. Some parents prefer to keep their child home for the rest of the day, depending on factors such as the child’s age. All children should be ready to return to school by the next day.
Q: Does the test cause any nerve damage?
A：不，NC的电刺激不会引起神经损伤。用于EMG的针电极未放置在任何主要神经附近。
Q: Can any other tests substitute for EMG?
A：If your doctor thinks that your child may have a muscle disorder, genetic testing may be enough to make the diagnosis. However, when the diagnosis is unclear, an EMG can help determine whether the nerves or muscles aren’t functioning normally. In some cases, a muscle biopsy or other test may be needed to provide a full diagnosis.
Questions to ask your doctor
If your child is going to be having EMG testing, you and your child probably have a lot of questions on your mind.What do the tests involve? Are the electrodes going to hurt my child?In these pages we’ve tried to provide some answers to questions you may have, and you should feel free to ask your child’s doctor about the tests, too.
在医疗预约中，很容易忘记您想问的问题。提前记下它们通常会有所帮助，以便您可以获取所需的信息，并对孩子的测试计划感到满意。如果您的孩子已经足够大，您可能想建议他写下他想问医生的内容。
Some of the questions you may want to ask include:
- What will happen during the EMG testing?
- 我们需要做些什么才能做好准备吗？
- Will my child be able to go to back to school that day?
- How is this test going to help in diagnosing my child’s condition?
来到波士顿儿童医院
参观波士顿儿童的For Patients and Families网站阅读所有有关：
- getting to Boston Children’s
- accommodations
- navigating the hospital experience
- 资源可用于你的家人
Electromyography and Nerve Conduction Velocity |Research
About the EMG Laboratory
我们的EMG laboratory at Boston Children’s Hospital is just for kids. That means that all of our physicians and technologists are experienced in working with children, making them as comfortable as possible during what can otherwise seem like a scary test. Our lab is staffed by neurologists in ourNeuromuscular Center。
创立于1979年，我们的EMG实验室继续为我们的年轻患者提供最复杂的测试。我们的特殊功能之一是单纤维EMG，这是一种特定的测试，可用于诊断肌无力重症but that’s rarely performed by pediatric specialists.
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