| Backpack Palsy |
| Oong-Yong Yoon, Kyu-Yong Lee, Young Ju Lee, Hee-Tae Kim, Juhan Kim, and Myung-Ho Kim |
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| Copyright © 2001 The Korean Society of Clinical Neurophysiology |
| This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited. |
| ABSTRACT |
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Background : Backpack palsy was described in military personnel with shoulder girdle and proximal upper extremity symptoms, predominantly motor in nature related to the use of heavy backpack. Currently, backpack were used for sports, transpoting, school books and child carriers. We evaluated clinical and electrophysiological feature of backpack palsy. Methods : We included 11 patients with brachial plexopathy as a results of wearing a heavy backpack on long distance marches. All patients were done routine blood sampling, chest X-ray, C-spine X-ray and electrophysiological studies. Results : All patients were right handed person and were not as having a thoracic outlet syndrome. Sensory changes were main initial symptoms and major persistent symptoms were motor weakness. 9 patients(81.8%) were damaged the brachial plexus on non-dominant side, 1 patients was dominant and 1 patient was bilateral involvement. 10 patients(90.9%) were damaged to upper trunk of the brachial plexus by EMG findings. The prognosis was good, 10 patients(90.0%) were complete recovery during 8 weeks, 1 patient was developed reflex sympathetic dystrophy confirmed by 3-phase bone scan. Conclusions : Depression of the clavicle and costoclavicular space probably plays a certain role in pathogenic mechanism. The non-doinant side is more frequently affected, probably due to underdevelopment of the musculature in that side. |
| Key words:
Backpack palsy, Brachial plexopathy |
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