Characteristics of Muscle Cramps in Patients with Polyneuropathy (I6-1.002)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
OBJECTIVE : This study describes the prevalence and characteristics of muscle cramps in patients with polyneuropathy. BACKGROUND : Muscle cramps are common and under-reported in the general population and can be disabling for some patients, particularly those with neuromuscular conditions. There is little data available in the medical literature comprehensively evaluating the characteristics of muscle cramps in patients with polyneuropathy. DESIGN/METHODS : Patients over the age of 18 evaluated at the Prosserman Neuromuscular Clinic (Toronto, Canada) and diagnosed with polyneuropathy were invited to join the study. A convenience, sequential study design was used to recruit patients. Cramp assessment was based on a self-administered questionnaire (which examined demographic factors, neuropathy symptoms and cramp characteristics), the Toronto Clinical Neuropathy score, and neuropathy specific Vickrey’s Quality of Life Assessment. RESULTS : Two hundred and thirty participants were enrolled (28.0% female) with the most frequent cause of neuropathy being diabetes (25.8%). Sixty-three percent of patients experienced cramps which occurred on average 6 times per week, lasted 10.4 minutes and scored 6 out of a possible 10 on an 11-point Likert scale for pain. Muscle cramps were described as disabling by 43.3% of patients. Muscle cramps occurred with a similar prevalence in pure sensory polyneuropathy (60.0%), small fiber neuropathy (53.9%), sensorimotor neuropathy (65.5%) and pure motor neuropathy (40.0%; p=0.58). Patients with disabling cramps rated their physical quality of life lower than patients without cramps (p<0.001) but there was no difference in mental quality of life (p=0.15). CONCLUSIONS: This study confirms that muscle cramps are a common and frequently disabling symptom which may affect physical quality of life in patients with polyneuropathy. Similar prevalence of cramps across neuropathies of various fiber types suggests a role of sensory afferents in the development of muscle cramps as has been previously suggested.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".