Units

PubMed

Doi

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Citation

Type

Journal

Publication Date

Issn Print

Pages

Brief description/objective

Objective
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease with involvement of the upper and lower motor neurons. Since the loss of fine motor skills is one of the earliest signs of ALS, the hypothesis was tested if the nine hole PEG test (NHPT) and transcranial magnet stimulation (TMS) with resting-motor threshold (RMT) could be useful in monitoring disease progression.

Methods
We examined 28 ALS patients and 27 age-matched healthy controls. ALS patients and healthy controls underwent the nine hole peg test (NHPT) and TMS with RMT. Measurements in patients were repeated after three and six months.

Results
At baseline, the median NHPT durations were 1,4-fold longer ( < 0.001), and TMS scores showed a significant 0.8-fold smaller score in ALS patients compared with healthy controls ( < 0.001). The comparison of three and six months versus baseline revealed significant differences for NHPT durations and ALSFRS-R in patients, whereas TMS scores did not significantly differ in the patients.

Conclusion
NHPT seems to be a good tool to evaluate dexterity of the hand and the progression of the disease in ALS patients. TMS RMT to the hand muscles seems to be poorly qualified to evaluate the dexterity of the hand function and the course of the disease.