Patent ID: 7452335

Claim:
A method for the determination of a composite pathology function whose output indicates a neuromuscular pathology in an individual, the method comprising the steps of: (a) selecting a first group of individuals that have the neuromuscular pathology; (b) applying a plurality of stimuli to a peripheral nerve of each individual in said first group of individuals so as to evoke a plurality of responses to said stimuli from said peripheral nerve or from a muscle innervated by said peripheral nerve; (c) recording said responses; (d) processing each of said responses into at least one selected response characteristic; (e) compiling said at least one response characteristic from all of said responses into a first set of selected descriptive parameters characterizing said first group of individuals; (f) selecting a second group of individuals that do not have the neuromuscular pathology; (g) repeating steps (b), (c), (d) and (e) on each individual of said second group of individuals that do not have the neuromuscular pathology to generate a second set of said descriptive parameters characterizing said second group of individuals; and (h) processing said first and second sets of descriptive parameters so as to determine a composite pathology function of said descriptive parameters that is indicative of the neuromuscular pathology, said composite pathology function being characterized in that the composite pathology function integrates the descriptive parameters into a single index represented by the following equation: NC composite = ⅇ ∑ i = 1 N ⁢ α i ⁢ p i 1 + ∑ i = 1 N ⁢ α i ⁢ p i where N represents a total number of predictive nerve conduction parameters, p i is the i-th nerve conduction parameter value and α i is a corresponding weighting coefficient.