Physical therapist Christopher Ellis explains how to distinguish central from peripheral nerve problems using reflex and sensation tests, then breaks down Seddon's three categories of nerve injuries: neuropraxia, axonotmesis, and neurotmesis.
We have ways to test for this. So if, if you have a central nervous system issue, your reflexes will be a little bit hyper on one side and just the opposite. If it's a peripheral nervous system issue, then you'll have a decreased sensation, hypo reflex. So that's how, as physical therapists, that's just one clue for many other things that we can use to determine where the issue is. But let's go into the different classifications of damage. So back in the '40s, there was a neurologist, Herbert Seddon, who came up with the Seddon classification. So he kind of put nerve injuries into 3 major categories: neuropraxia, axonotmesis, and neurotmesis.
