Timed Vibration Testing aids in the Diagnosis of Distal Sensory Polyneuropathy

A new article written by  Prabhakar et al. has demonstrated the utility of timed vibration testing  in diagnosing distal sensory polyneuropathy (DSP) due to a variety of conditions. They utilized a 128 Hz tuning fork and a handheld stopwatch to time how long patients could feel the vibrations at the hallux, medial malleolus and tibial tuberosity. They noted sensitivity of  85% for the test. Additionally, they were able to conclude that patients with vibration sense lasting >8 seconds at the hallux were free of DSP. Coincidentally, this correlates well with the new 7 second cutoff for early neuropathy on the updated ETF.