What does it mean when your reflexes are diminished?

Hyporeflexia refers to a condition in which your muscles are less responsive to stimuli. If your muscles don’t respond at all to stimuli, this is known as areflexia. Your muscles may be so weak that you can’t do everyday activities.

What causes decreased tendon reflexes?

Peripheral neuropathy is today the most common cause of absent reflexes. The causes include diseases such as diabetes, alcoholism, amyloidosis, uremia; vitamin deficiencies such as pellagra, beriberi, pernicious anemia; remote cancer; toxins including lead, arsenic, isoniazid, vincristine, diphenylhydantoin.

What does lack of knee reflex mean?

The normal response is a ‘knee jerk’. This is an example of a reflex, which is an involuntary muscular response elicited by the rubber hammer tapping the associated tendon. When reflex responses are absent this could be a clue that the spinal cord, nerve root, peripheral nerve, or muscle has been damaged.

What causes loss of reflex in knee?

Usually, absent reflexes are caused by an issue with the nerves in the tendon and muscle. You may have other muscle symptoms along with areflexia, like weakness, twitching, or atrophy.

What causes no knee jerk reflex?

Clinical Significance An absent or diminished patellar tendon reflex may be due to PNS pathology affecting either the afferent sensory neurons or the efferent motor neurons. If the reflex is absent or diminished combined with sensory loss, the lesion is likely in the afferent sensory nerves.

What diseases affect reflexes?

Causes of Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Syndrome

• certain heart diseases, including myocardial infarction.
• cervical spine or spinal cord disorders.
• lesions on the brain.
• certain infections.
• invasive surgery.
• repetitive motion disorders leading to such ailments as carpal tunnel syndrome.

Why do doctors check your reflexes in your knee?

Medical author Dr Janice Rachel Mae explains that doctors routinely use reflex tests to check if there are any problems in the nervous system involved in movement, nerve functioning or health of the connective tissue in the knee or leg.

What cranial nerve is responsible for knee jerk?

Although the knee jerk reflex is mediated by the L3 and L4 nerve roots, evidence exists that altered knee jerk expression may occur with exclusively L5 radiculopathy.

Why dont you have a knee-jerk reflex?

An absent or diminished patellar tendon reflex may be due to PNS pathology affecting either the afferent sensory neurons or the efferent motor neurons. If the reflex is absent or diminished combined with sensory loss, the lesion is likely in the afferent sensory nerves.

Do patients with knee reflex abnormalities have reduced ankle tendon reflex?

The knee reflex of the unaffected leg could be elicited normally in all 56 patients. Of the subjects with knee reflex abnormalities, only one had a reduced ankle tendon reflex.

What is the age difference between absent and reduced knee reflex?

The mean age of the patients (17 subjects) with absent or reduced knee reflex was 47.6±9.7 years, whereas in the other group (39 subjects) it was 51±8.9 years (difference not significant); in the former group the BMI was 25.4±3.2 kg/m2, in the latter 24.9±3.7 (difference not significant).

What is a knee-jerk reflex?

The reflex is then an automatic response to a stimulus that does not receive or need conscious thought. The knee-jerk response is any kind of reaction that is done automatically, without thought, and is one of the fastest and most primitive in the human body: it uses only two nerve cells via the spinal cord,…

Is knee jerk reflex reduction due to L3/L4 root injury?

Since the knee jerk reflex reduction in our patients is not due to L3/L4 root injury, other causative factors need to be considered.