Case Report: Nonsurgical management of painless cervical motor radiculopathy.
Yong Ho Lee
PMID 41358257WHAT IT FOUND
A 67-year-old man with sudden, painless, severe right shoulder weakness recovered full function in five weeks using epidural steroid injections, physical therapy and medication.
This single case suggests conservative management can work, but cannot prove it is safe or effective for others.
Key findings
01The patient received a combination of four epidural steroid injections, pregabalin, and exercise therapy over five weeks.
02Motor strength improved from MRC grade 3- to MRC grade 5- and shoulder range of motion from 60 degrees to 180 degrees within five weeks.
03The authors explicitly state that findings from this single case cannot be generalized to all patients with painless motor radiculopathy.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
This is a single case report, so it describes what happened to one person, not a pattern of outcomes. The patient received four different things at once: epidural injections, hyaluronidase, pregabalin, and exercise therapy. The contribution of any single component cannot be separated. There was no long-term follow-up to check if the weakness returned. The patient chose nonsurgical care due to occupational pressure, which may have influenced his reporting of improvement. The study had no control group, so it is unknown if the patient would have recovered with rest alone or if surgery would have been faster.
Declared interests
The authors declare that no financial support was received for the research or publication of this article.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that epidural steroid injections are the cause of the recovery. The patient also received pregabalin and exercise therapy, and the paper states that the effect of any single component cannot be isolated in this case.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →