Documentation of the Resolution of Weakness in a Patient with Guillain-Barré Syndrome

Many papers have been published that describe the progression and resolution of limb muscle weakness in patients with Guillain-Barré syndrome.1–3 These descriptions usually consist of statements regarding the presence of weakness or gradings of weakness on an ordinal scale. Although such data are adequate to provide an indication of a patient's status, they do not describe the monitoring of a patient's actual rate of progress. Hand-held force gauges (dynamometers), which have been used to monitor the strength of patients with poliomyelitis,4 muscle disease,5 and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis,6 provide a method to monitor actual muscle weakness and its resolution in the limbs of patients with Guillain-Barré syndrome. The purpose of this clinical report is to demonstrate how serial measurements of static strength obtained with a hand-held dynamometer can be used to document changes in the strength of a patient with Guillain-Barré syndrome.