Paraspinal abscess or clinically significant soft tissue infection following epidural analgesia is a rare but serious complication if left untreated. We report 54-year-old gentleman with underlying chronic diabetes mellitus who had motor vehicle accident and undergone several surgeries. A course of steroid was provided for delayed lower neuron facial nerve palsy (House-Brackmann stage 4). The c...

Neuromuscular control of spinal stability may be represented as a control system wherein the paraspinal muscle reflex acts as feedback response to kinetic and kinematic disturbances of the trunk. The influence of preparatory muscle recruitment for the control of spinal stability has been previously examined, but there are few reported studies that characterize paraspinal reflex gain as feedback...

INTRODUCTION Previous work from our group has identified extensive ligamento-muscular reflex pathways between the cervical facet joint capsule (FJC) and the superficial and deep cervical paraspinal musculature, both ipsilateral and contralateral to the stretched FJC, which were activated by physiologic low-rate (0.5 mm/s) [1] and high-rate (100 mm/s) [2] FJC stretch. Since approximately 22% of ...

PEARLS Adult-onset Pompe disease (acid maltase deficiency, glycogen storage disease type II) should be considered in the differential diagnosis in the adult patient presenting with slowly progressive selective lower extremity weakness, specifically of the hip flexors. Hip flexion weakness may be the only finding in the earliest stages of this disease. EMG findings of myotonic discharges occurri...

Case Description: Here we illustrate the case of a 34-year-old woman with a paraspinal lesion 12 presenting with severe lumbar pain. There were no focal sensory or motor deficits. Magnetic 13 resonance imaging (MRI) disclosed a nodular lesion embedded in the paraspinal lumbar musculature, 14 suspicious of tumorous growth. Complete surgical excision of the lesion was performed with clear 15 marg...

Electromyography is the technique of recording electrical potentials associated with muscular activity. Needle electrodes may be inserted in the muscle being monitored, or surface electrodes may be placed on the skin overlying the muscles being studied. Both techniques have been used for the examination of paraspinal and peripheral muscle function. However, surface EMG and needle EMG are not in...

Historically, these tumors have been resected using a traditional midline incision for posterior bilateral laminectomies or hemilaminectomies. Recently, minimally invasive surgery (MIS) techniques with expandable or nonexpendable tubular retractors have been explored for spinal tumor excision for the purposes of reducing blood loss, soft-tissue injury, and hospital stays. Compared to traditiona...