Rinsho Shinkeigaku (Clinical Neurology)

The 47th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Neurology

Autonomic function tests for analysis of pathophysiology and prognosis of autonomic neuropathy

Masanari Kunimoto, M.D.

Department of Neurology, International Medical Center of Japan

It is recommended to assess each autonomic system with system-specific function tests. Pupillary and cardiocirculatory systems have a benefit to perform the tests quantitatively, but most of the other systems are measured qualitatively. The aim of the tests exist in detecting the focus and the severity of a disease. Some tests are favored to be used repeatedly for judging the recovery. Head-up tilt and Valsalva tests are not adequate to observe the short term improvement, but serum noradrenalin level has a good correlation to the rapid recovery. Autonomic symptoms may occur due to the dysfunction not by the efferent sympathetic pathway but by the afferent in rare cases. Sympathetic overactive conditions can be observed in those situations.

(CLINICA NEUROL, 46: 881|883, 2006)
key words: Autonomic neuropathy, Autonomic function test, Arterial baroreflex

(Received: 12-May-06)