Short report
Motor neuron disease after electric injury
H Jafaria, P Couratierb, W Camua
a Fédération de
Neurologie, Hôpital Gui de Chauliac, CHU de Montpellier, 34 295 Montpellier Cedex 5, France, b Service de Neurologie, CHU Dupuytren, 87000 - Limoges, France
Correspondence to: Professor W Camu w-camu{at}chu-montpellier.fr
Received 29 December
2000 and in revised form 27 March 2001;
Accepted 2 April
2001
The occurrence of motor neuron disease after electrical
injury in six patients is reported and compared with patients from the
literature. The patients were five men with spinal onset and one woman
with bulbar motor neuron disease after
electric shock. Two patients were struck by lightning and four by
industrial electric shock. For all six of them, the disease started at
the site of the electrical trauma. The mean delay for
onset of motor neuron disease was 44 months. In
four of the spinal patients the disease progressed slowly with mild
handicap after several years. For the fifth patient, improvement was
noted progressively. The patient with bulbar disease died 26 months
after onset. A link between electric shock and
motor neuron disease is likely, given the
homogenous profile of the patients both in the five spinal cases
presented here and in the literature. Bulbar onset has not been
reported to date. However, in this patient the long delay between the
electrical injury and motor neuron disease,
together with the rapid evolution may suggest a chance association.
Keywords: motor neuron disease; electric injury
© 2001 by Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry
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