Page "Spasticity" Paragraph 12

Spasticity is assessed by feeling the resistance of the muscle to passive lengthening in its most relaxed state.

A spastic muscle will have immediately noticeable, often quite forceful, increased resistance to passive stretch when moved with speed and / or while attempting to be stretched out, as compared to the non-spastic muscles in the same person's body ( if any exist ).

As there are many features of the Upper Motor Neuron Syndrome, there are likely to be multiple other changes in affected musculature and surrounding bones, such as progressive misalignments of bone structure around the spastic muscles ( leading for example to the scissor gait in spastic diplegia.

Also, following an upper motor neuron lesion, there may be multiple muscles affected, to varying degrees, depending on the location and severity of the upper motor neuron damage.

The result for the affected individual, is that they may have any degree of impairment, ranging from a mild to a severe movement disorder.

A relatively mild movement disorder may contribute to a loss of dexterity in an arm, or difficulty with high level mobility such as running or walking on stairs.

A severe movement disorder may result in marked loss of function with minimal or no volitional muscle activation.

There are several scales used to measure spasticity, such as the King ’ s Hypertonicity Scale, the Tardieu, and the Modified Ashworth.

Of these three, only the King ’ s Hypertonicity Scale measures a range of muscle changes from the UMN lesion, including active muscle performance as well as passive response to stretch.