STUDY ON THE SOMESTHETIC EVOKED POTENTIAL IN ELECTRO-ACUPUNCTURE TREATMENT OF CERVICAL SPONDYLOPATHY

In order to study the significance of somesthetic evoked potentials (SEP) in diagnosis of cervical spondylopathy (CS) and judgement of its therapeutic effect, a total of 60 cases of CS patients were randomly divided into electroacupuncture (EA) group (n=30) and control (traction) group (n=30). Amplitudes of N 9, N 11 , N 13 , N 20 and intervals of N 9-N 13 , N 13 -N 20 and N 9-N 20 of SEP were used as indexes. After 3 courses of treatment, the clinical therapeutic effect of EA group was significantly superior to that of control group (P<0.01); the amplitudes of the aforementioned components of SEP in both groups increased apparently while the interpeak latency shortened in different degrees. In EA group, the increased values of various components of SEP amplitude, except for N 9, were all larger than those of control group (P<0.05 for N 11 , P<0.01 for N 13 and N 20 ); the values of shortened latency of different components, except for N 13 -N 20 , were all larger than those of control group (P<0.01 for N 9-N 13 and N 9-N 20 ). It suggests that SEP possess a certain significance in diagnosis and evaluation of CS and can be used as one of the objective indexes for evaluation of the therapeutic effect.