Peripheral Nerve Conduction in Diabetic Neuropathy

The estimation of motor nerve conduction velocity and the direct recording of nerve action potentials are now well established electrodiagnostic pro- cedures, and this paper is concerned with their application to patients with diabetic neuropathy.It is already known that in these patients motor conduction velocity may become slow (Ferrari- Forcade, Temesio, and Gomensoro, 1960; Mulder, Lambert, Bastron, and Sprague, 1961; Skillman, Johnson, Hamwi, and Driskill, 1961) and that nerve action potentials may be lost (Gilliatt, Goodman, and Willison, 1961), these changes being similar to those found in other forms of peripheral neuropathy.For the present paper we have selected a small number of diabetic patients who have been exten- sively investigated, with the object of relating the electrical findings to the particular clinical features of individual cases.