Neurophysiology
A guide for patients and carers
What will happen in the clinical neurophysiology department?
They will begin by taking some details of your medical history, particularly as it relates to the reason you have been sent for the test. He or she will then explain what is going to happen during the test, which will usually begin with small metal discs called electrodes being applied to the scalp.
Once the test is finished, the technician will pass on the findings to the clinical neurophysiologist, who will examine the results and produce a report on them. This will then be sent to the doctor who referred you for the test - usually a specialist in one of the hospital outpatient clinics.
A copy of the report is not normally sent to your GP unless they referred you for the tests directly. Instead, the specialist will write to the GP when he or she has the results of all of the tests that he or she has asked for, drawing a conclusion based on all of this information put together.
If your test is nerve conduction it may be done by a technician, often with the doctor coming in to see you afterwards, sometimes to carry out further testing.
However, in most departments, the nerve conduction and EMG tests are done by the clinical neurophysiologist.
He or she will begin by taking a description of your symptoms and any other relevant medical details and may carry out a brief examination. They will then explain and carry out the test. They may discuss the results and what they mean at the end of the consultation, or they may pass this information on to the doctor in the outpatient clinic that referred you to them. The doctor will then discuss the results with you and decide on treatment. Either way, a report will be sent off to the doctor who referred you for the test.
Contents
- Introduction
- What is clinical neurophysiology?
- Who works in a neurophysiology department?
- What will happen in the clinical neurophysiology department?
- What is an EEG?
- Why is my doctor sending me for a sleep EEG?
- Can an EEG be carried on yound children and babies?
- What will the EEG show in someone with epilepsy?
- What is an ambulatory EEG?
- When is video-telemetry used?
- Can the EEG help with the decision about possible surgery for epilepsy?
- What are evoked potentials?
- What is evoked potential testing used for?
- What can I expect during the test?
- What is EMG and nerve conduction studies?
- EMG in measuring electrical activity of the muscles
- Summary
- Other organisations that may be able to help