PERIPHERAL-NERVE LESIONS IN HEMORRHAGIC DISEASES

Abstract

IMPAIRMENT of peripheral-nerve function as a result of hemorrhage is an incapacitating, though unusual, complication of hemorrhagic diseases. The hemorrhage may be spontaneous or may follow injury that may be slight or severe. The blood may accumulate in the tissues about the nerve, sometimes with hematoma formation, and thus injure the nerve by pressure upon it; or the bleeding may take place within the nerve sheath itself, thus injuring the fibers directly and interfering with their function. In either case serious functional impairment sometimes develops. As is generally known, pressure of any kind upon a nerve will produce conduction defects, the degree of severity depending upon the kind and duration of pressure.¹Tumors, aneurysms, and other growing tissue masses may have such an effect. In bleeding disorders, hemophilia, for instance, impairment of peripheralnerve function has sometimes been associated with the presence of a hematoma adjacent to the affected nerve,