Date of Award

2020

Document Type

Critically Appraised Topic

Department

Occupational Therapy

First Advisor

Anne Haskins

Second Advisor

Breann Lamborn

Third Advisor

Gail Bass/Devon Olson Lambert

Abstract

Polyneuropathies cause damage to multiple peripheral nerves on both sides of the body, resulting in sensory loss and weakness of the extremities (Bautista & Grossman, 2014; Mayo Clinic, 2019). Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) is a disorder with an unknown distinct cause that consists of a person's immune system destroying the cells within his or her peripheral nervous system occurring in stages (Mayo Clinic, 2020; Sawant & Ferzandi, 2015). Acute inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (AIDP) is an auto-immune inflammatory polyneuropathy that is a variant of GBS (Alessandro et al., 2018; Bautista & Grossman, 2014; Brooks, 2014; Mayo Clinic, 2019; National Institutes of Neurological Disorders and Stroke [NINDS], 2018). Each year, GBS affects populations regardless of their cultural and social background, age, or gender at a rate of about 1 to 2 persons in a 100,000 population (Hanson, n.d.). According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), there are approximately 3,000 - 6,000 reported cases of GBS in the U.S. in any given year (2019). GBS is more common in individuals with underlying medical conditions, and these conditions include (but are not limited to): (a) diabetes, (b) heart disease, (c) congestive heart failure, (d) cancer or history of cancer, and (e) obesity (cdc.gov, 2019). The CDC (2019) mentioned that the risk of getting GBS increases with age and is more common in older adults, especially in adults over the age of 65 years.

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