A guide to identify cervical autonomic dysfunctions (and associated conditions) in patients with musculoskeletal disorders in physical therapy practice.
Firas Mourad, Andrea Giudice, Giorgio Maritati, Filippo Maselli, Rik Kranenburg, Alan Taylor, Roger Kerry, Nathan Hutting
PMID 37075598WHAT IT FOUND
This masterclass describes how physical therapists can spot cervical autonomic dysfunctions like Horner syndrome during triage.
It reports no patients and no outcomes, so it offers no evidence that any assessment or treatment works.
What this paper is
This is a masterclass review describing how to recognise cervical autonomic dysfunctions in physical therapy practice. It contains no patient data, no outcomes, and no tested interventions, so there is nothing here to change your practice on.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat the described examination steps as validated screening tools. The authors state that there is remarkably little literature on the validity of the autonomic and neurological examination, and that such examination may be sensitive but has poor specificity.