title: Inter- and intra-examiner reliability of nerve conduction measurements in normal subjects.
abstract: Nerve conduction studies are widely employed in evaluating patients with peripheral nerve disease and are often used serially to measure disease progression or to assess a therapeutic intervention. We determined the inter- and intra-examiner reliability of electrophysiological data by performing serial nerve conduction studies on 7 normal subjects. A high degree of intra-examiner reliability was present, but significant inter-examiner differences were found. Our results suggest that if nerve conduction studies are to be used longitudinally, they should optimally be performed by a single examiner to minimize the degree of variability associated with different examiners.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21205.
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Chaudhry
authors.forename: D R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Cornblath
authors.forename: E D
authors.initials: ED
authors.lastname: Mellits
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Avila
authors.forename: M L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Freimer
authors.forename: J D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Glass
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Reim
authors.forename: G V
authors.initials: GV
authors.lastname: Ronnett
authors.forename: S A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Quaskey
authors.forename: R W
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Kuncl
mesh_terms: D004576:Electromyography; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D009431:Neural Conduction; D015588:Observer Variation; D011897:Random Allocation; D012016:Reference Values; D015203:Reproducibility of Results