- diabetic a. a type of diabetic neuropathy that primarily affects elderly patients with diabetes mellitus; clinically characterized by unilateral or bilateral anterior thigh pain, weakness, and atrophy; of abrupt or gradual onset and, when bilateral, of simultaneous or sequential onset, and usually asymmetrical; one type of diabetic polyradiculopathy. Sometimes referred to, erroneously, as diabetic femoral neuropathy.
- neuralgic a. a neurological disorder, of unknown cause, characterized by the sudden onset of severe pain, usually about the shoulder and often beginning at night, soon followed by weakness and wasting of various forequarter muscles, particularly shoulder girdle muscles; both sporadic and familial in occurrence with the former much more common; often preceded by some antecedent event, such as an upper respiratory infection, hospitalization, vaccination, or nonspecific trauma; usually attributed to a brachial plexus lesion, because the nerve fibers involved are most often derived from the upper trunk, but actually multiple proximal mononeuropathies. SYN: acute brachial radiculitis, brachial neuritis, brachial plexitis, brachial plexus neuropathy, Parsonage-Turner syndrome, shoulder-girdle syndrome.
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n.
a progressive loss of muscle bulk associated with weakness of these muscles. It is caused by disease of the nerve that activates the affected muscle. Amyotrophy is a feature of any chronic neuropathy and it may be found in some diabetic patients (see diabetic amyotrophy). A combination of amyotrophy and spasticity may be found in the different forms of motor neurone disease.
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amy·ot·ro·phy (a″mi-otґrə-fe) atrophy of muscle tissue.Medical dictionary. 2011.