Fysische diagnostiek - het meten van spierkracht

- Measuring muscle strength and establishing paretic symptoms are done first of all by having the patient perform actions or movements that require normal muscle strength.

- Measuring or grading the strength of separate muscle groups is usually done by means of the socalled Medical Research Council (MRC) scale that runs from 0 to 5, with the movement against gravity as an important criterion. This scale is not very valid in tract 4 (more strength than needed to overcome gravity, but still subnormal).

- Using a manual dynamometer or a fixed dynamometer it is possible to measure the strength of most clinically important muscle groups of the extremities and to compare them with values found in a normal population.

- For following the individual patient with a neuromuscular disorder, strength measurement with the dynamometer is more reliable than grading using the MRC scale.