Weakening of muscles
| Weakness | |
|---|---|
| Classification and external resources | |
| Specialty | Neurology, Psychiatry |
| ICD-10 | R53 |
| ICD-9-CM | 728.87 (728.9 before 10/01/03); alternatively, 780.79 |
| DiseasesDB | 22832 |
| MedlinePlus | 003174 |
| MeSH | D018908 |
Weakness or asthenia is a symptom of a number of different conditions. The causes are many and can be divided into conditions that have true or perceived muscle weakness. True muscle weakness is a primary symptom of a variety of skeletal muscle diseases, including muscular dystrophy and inflammatory myopathy. It occurs in neuromuscular junction disorders, such as myasthenia gravis.
In some conditions, such as myasthenia gravis, muscle strength is normal when resting, but true weakness occurs after the muscle has been subjected to exercise. This is also true for some cases of chronic fatigue syndrome, where objective post-exertion muscle weakness with delayed recovery time has been measured and is a feature of some of the published definitions.
Asthenia (Greek: ἀσθένεια, lit lack of strength but also disease) is a medical term referring to a condition in which the body lacks or has lost strength either as a whole or in any of its parts. It denotes symptoms of physical weakness and loss of strength. General asthenia occurs in many chronic wasting diseases (such as tuberculosis and cancer), sleep disorders or chronic disorders of the heart, lungs or kidneys, and is probably most marked in diseases of the adrenal gland. Asthenia may be limited to certain organs or systems of organs, as in asthenopia, characterized by ready fatiguability. Asthenia is also a side effect of some medications and treatments, such as Ritonavir (a protease inhibitor used in HIV treatment), vaccines such as the HPV vaccine Gardasil and fentanyl patches (an opioid used to treat pain).
Differentiating psychogenic (perceived) asthenia and true asthenia from myasthenia is often difficult, and in time apparent psychogenic asthenia accompanying many chronic disorders is seen to progress into a primary weakness.
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