Patients who report higher pretest pain and anxiety typically report more pain during the procedure. It is crucial to discuss and understand a patient's pain before referring to EMG because stopping midstudy because of pain sacrifices patients' resources, adds to their discomfort, and creates the challenge of interpretation from limited data for the electromyographer. 3 The study is typically well tolerated but for some patients it is nearly unbearable. Most surveys find pain more common in the needle portion. Pain is the most common complication of EMG 2 causing some level of discomfort in all patients either from the nerve conduction portion or the needle examination. 1 This review addresses the types of patients and pain that warrant referral to EMG and when to consider this a useful diagnostic study.
Choosing which patients to refer for EMG is important because there are costs of patient time, money, and perhaps most importantly, pain intrinsically associated with EMG itself. EMG can be considered an extension of the clinical neurologic examination, rather than simply a test, and is ordered by many healthcare providers from all specialties.
Nerve conduction and EMG studies are an important procedure for evaluating possible peripheral nervous system (PNS) disorders.
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