Electrophysiological techniques for clinical diagnosis

Electrophysiological techniques for clinical diagnosis will discuss the techniques borrowed from electrophysiology used in the clinical diagnosis of subjects. There are many processes that occur in the body which produce electrical signals that can be detected. Depending on the location and the source of these signals, distinct methods and techniques have been developed to properly target them.

Electrophysiology has a very important role in ensuring accurate clinical diagnoses. Many neurological diseases cause symptoms that manifest far from the injured or deceased tissues. Locating and treating all affected areas of the body is essential for proper patient care. Electrophysiology allows for the investigation of abnormal electrical signals in the body’s tissues. It provides quantitative data to clinicians, supporting diagnostic processes and evaluating treatment success. Often, biological measures such as electrophysiology are more useful in assessing symptom severity than existing clinical measurement scales. Their objective nature removes subjective assignment of scores to symptom severity, subsequently leading to better informed healthcare decisions.

There are various techniques available to study and measure the electromagnetic signals of the body. The brain, the heart and skeletal muscles are prime sources of electric and magnetic fields that can be recorded and the resulting patterns can give insight on what ailments the subject may have. These electrophysiological techniques are named according to what data is measured and sometimes the anatomical location of the sources as follows:

Electroencephalography is the measurement of brain activity through the surface of the scalp. Electroencephalography data can be processed through analytical procedures and certain derived summary indices of these analyses are called quantitative electroencephalography (QEEG). Data from evoked potentials can also be used processed in certain ways that can be considered quantitative EEG as well. If QEEG data is mapped then it is a topographic QEEG (also known as brain electrical activity mapping or BEAM )

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