Significance of Electromyography in the Assessment of Diabetic Neuropathy

Abstract

Diabetic neuropathy is one of the physical complications of diabetes mellitus (DM) patients with a long history of diabetes. An electromyography (EMG)-based assessment may be very useful for the management of diabetic neuropathy. In the present study, we aimed to summarize all of the findings and recommendations obtained from previous studies that investigated the application of EMG to the assessment of diabetic neuropathy. An extensive search of the prominent electronic databases PubMed, Google Scholar and Scopus was performed to evaluate the following areas: (i) what are the muscles to be evaluated by EMG for neuropathy assessment, (ii) what type of EMG methodologies have been used and (iii) what recommendation can be made for neuropathy detection. The major findings are summarized as follows: (i) very few studies have analyzed the correlation of the EMG signals acquired from peripheral muscles affected in neuropathy with those obtained with non-neuropathic complications, such as ankle sprain; (ii) EMG has been applied for the detection of diabetic neuropathy more than diabetes treatment; and (iii) neuropathy detection using an EMG-based assessment were mainly performed for type 2 DM patients aged at least 50 years.