Steemit Learning Challenge-S21W3; Cervical Radiculopathy"

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What's Cervical Radiculopathy? Write in your own words after getting knowledge from the lesson post.

Cervical radiculopathy is also called pinched nerve. it’s a condition that results in pain, numbness or weakness when there is a compression of any of the nerves in the root or starting point of the neck. Sometimes this numbness or weakness may extend to our arms.

In other words, When the nerve roots of the cervical becomes inflamed or compressed, it leads to a neurological dysfunction called cervical radiculopathy which is usually accompanied by visible pain and numbness.

The word cervical is gotten from the root word in Latin “cervix”. Cervix means neck. For a clearer understanding, you should know that in cases of cervical radiculopathy, the problem is not in the cervix but in the neck.

Our spinal cord is like the main road that connects all the nerves in our body to our Brain while the nerve root is the inceptive nerve proceeding from our spinal cord to every other part of our body. There are different nerve roots along our spine that stretched to various parts of our body. When one of these nerve roots is pinched it affects nerve that are connected to it and that’s what’s causes the pain in the neck that also goes down to the arm

Who can be affected by cervical radiculopathy?

Cervical radiculopathy affect anyone but it’s very common in adults. Out of ten thousand persons, it can affect about eighty five persons. The C6 nerve root is said to be affected in over a quarter of the cases of cervical radiculopathy while the C7 nerve root is affected in over half of the cases.

Symptoms and Causes of cervical radiculopathy

The nerves that connect to our necks stretches to other parts of our body such as our arms, shoulders, upper back and our chest. Because of this, the symptoms that emanates from cervical radiculopathy can go down to any or more parts of these body depending on the root nerve that was affected. Cervical radiculopathy in most cases usually affects only one side of our body for example the left arm. It won’t affect both arms. The nerves that connect to your cervical spine (neck) extend out to other body parts:

The symptoms that arise due to cervixal radiculopathy incudes:

• Numbness
• Muscle weakness
• Pain
• Weakness of the reflexes
• Needles and pins feeling or a tingling sensation.

The individual may feel one or a combination of the pains listed above. This pain is felt when the neck is strained, moved in a certain way or extended.

Causes of cervical radiculopathy

• Cervical spondylosis: This is a degenerative change that occurs in the spine when someone ages. The wear and tear that happens in the neck with age causes stiffness of the neck and pains. Sometimes this can be called osteoarthritis of the neck

• Herniated disk: This is when a disk in the neck bulges. As one get older or get injured, there can be a weakening or cracking of the outer layer of the disc vertebrae leading to the pushing out of the inner jelly through the crack. When this materials that leaked from the disk presses on the nerves of the spine, it results to cervical radiculopathy.

Factors that can lead to herniated discs includes:

• Lack of excercise
• Aging
• Poor posture
• Injury on the neck
• Incorrect twisting or lifting of the neck leading to additional Stress on the neck

This type of cervical radiculopathy is common in people who are up to fifty years and above.

How would you diagnose a Cervical Radiculopathy? Any clinical investigation or assessment tests?

Diagnosis and Tests

When the doctor is visited by a patient with pinched neck, the healthcare provider would enquire from the patient about the following:

• Medical history
• History of accidents or injuries
• General health and
• Symptoms.

They will examine the neck, arms, shoulder and hands to check if there are any changes in the patient’s reflexes and find out the various sensation he is feeling. Cervical radiculopathy is unilateral (affects only one side of the body) hence the doctor would compare the sensations the patient is feeling on one side of the body to the other side.

He would ask the patient to do some neck and arm movements in order to relieve or recreate the symptoms. Many other conditions can cause pain such as neuropathy. Therefore the patient would be asked to undergo some imaging tests so that the diagnosis can be confirmed.

Tests to diagnose cervical radiculopathy

Apart from the physical examinations, these tests are used to diagnose cervical radiculopathy.

• MRI (Magnetic Resonance imaging): The MRI scan enables the doctor to see the abnormalities in the soft tissues, the compressed nerves and also the herniated discs.

• Electromyography (EMG): This test can help to dictate if the nerve is working well. An EMG test checks for muscles response or electrical activity reaction of a nerve’s activation of the muscle.

• Spine X-rays: Cervical spine X-Rays is one of the common ways to produce imaging tests that checks for neck pain and pain in the upper part of the body. Issues such as foranimal or narrowing of disc space can be revealed from different angles and views.

• CT scan (Computed tomography): This is used to diagnose traumatic injuries that resulted to cervical radiculopathy through the pictures of the inside of the body produced by the machine

Clinical investigation or assessment tests

The doctor would carry out some assessment test to confirm the diagnosis and the two basic assessments tests are:

• Spurling test: Spurling’s test is a test with a low sensitivity of about 50% and specificity of about 85% in diagonising CR hence it’s had moderate clinical value. It’s designed to provoke the symptoms which are normally neck pain with radiating pain down the arm.

It’s done with the patient’s neck in extension with the lateral bending to the affected side and extra compression. It is important to elicit distal pain distribution to be able to distinguish between patients with CR and spondylosis.