Cervical Pain
This provocative test combines neck extension, lateral rotation, and axial compression to reproduce radicular arm pain
What is Spurling's test?
This test raises the straightened leg with the patient supine, reproducing radicular pain between 30–70°
What is the straight leg raise test?
This condition shows progressive loss of both active AND passive range of motion in the shoulder
What is adhesive capsulitis?
This test combines valgus/varus stress with knee flexion/extension and rotation to detect a meniscal tear
What is McMurray's test?
This opioid is a partial μ-opioid receptor agonist and κ-opioid receptor antagonist with a ceiling effect on respiratory depression, making it a preferred option for many patients with opioid use disorder and chronic pain.
What is Buprenorphine?
Buprenorphine has high receptor affinity, partial agonist activity at the μ-opioid receptor, and a lower risk of respiratory depression compared with full agonists.
This sign — an electric-shock sensation down the spine with neck flexion — suggests cervical cord pathology
What is Lhermitte's sign?
This nerve root is most often affected in lumbar disc herniation, causing weak great toe extension
What is L5?
This test has the patient make a fist over the thumb while the wrist is ulnarly deviated, for De Quervain's
What is Finkelstein's test?
This test pulls the tibia forward with the knee flexed 90° to check ACL integrity
What is the anterior drawer test?
Cervical nerve roots exit _____ the corresponding vertebral body. Thoracic and lumbar nerve roots exit _____ the corresponding vertebral body
Above and below
CATLB
This nerve root deficit causes weak elbow flexion and a diminished biceps reflex
What is C6 radiculopathy?
This pars interarticularis defect is common in adolescent athletes, especially gymnasts and football linemen
What is spondylolysis?
This test has the patient resist downward pressure in the "empty can" position to isolate the supraspinatus
What is the empty can (Jobe) test
This compressive neuropathy causes burning/numbness over the anterolateral thigh without motor loss
What is meralgia paresthetica?
This receptor system is believed to play the central role in opioid-induced hyperalgesia and is the pharmacologic target responsible for methadone's and ketamine's unique utility in this condition.
What is the NMDA receptor?
Central sensitization mediated by NMDA receptor activation contributes to opioid-induced hyperalgesia, making NMDA antagonists useful adjuncts in select patients.
This compressive syndrome of the brachial plexus/subclavian vessels is provoked by the Roos or Adson maneuver
What is thoracic outlet syndrome?
This surgical emergency presents with saddle anesthesia plus bowel/bladder dysfunction
What is cauda equina syndrome?
This pathologic process is responsible for Kienböck disease
Avascular necrosis (osteonecrosis) of the lunate
This side-lying test extends and adducts the hip to assess IT band tightness
What is Ober's test?
Identify the peripheral sensory fiber type for each description:
1) Myelinated, medium velocity, transmits sharp pain, light touch and temperature
2) Unmyelinated, slow velocity, transmits dull/achy pain and temperature
3) Myelinated, fast velocity, transmits touch, pressure, vibration, proprioception
1) A-delta
2) C
3) A-beta
This upper motor neuron sign — involuntary finger flexion/extension when tapping the middle finger — indicates cervical myelopathy
What is Hoffmann's sign?
This test flexes, abducts, and externally rotates the hip to stress the SI joint or hip itself
What is the FABER/Patrick's test?
This region of the supraspinatus tendon, located roughly 1 cm from its humeral insertion, has a relatively poor blood supply — making it especially prone to degeneration and tearing, and a key factor in why chronic impingement progresses to rotator cuff failure.
What is the critical zone (of hypovascularity)?
This condition causes heel pain that's worst with the first steps in the morning
What is plantar fasciitis?
This steroid minimizes the risk of embolic spinal cord infarction if inadvertent intra-arterial injection occurs.
Dexamethasone
The major concern during cervical TESI is injection into a radicular or vertebral artery. Particulate corticosteroids contain crystals that can aggregate and embolize small arteries supplying the spinal cord or brainstem, potentially causing catastrophic neurologic injury. Dexamethasone has the lowest risk of embolic vascular occlusion because it is non-particulate.