Central nervous system impairment in diabetic patients

The aims of this study were to investigate the function of the central motor control system in interaction with the vestibular and auditory systems (measured by H-reflex changes in response to vestibular and acoustic stimulations) in diabetics without clinical data for CNS impairment, in order to establish whether the disease affects these CNS mechanisms; and to assess this approach in detecting subclinical CNS diabetic pathology. The results show the same mode of change of H-reflex amplitude in response to acoustic and vestibular stimulations in diabetics as in normal subjects. However the degree of facilitation and inhibition was significantly (p < 0.001) higher in diabetics which indicates subclinical CNS dysfunction. Therefore it was concluded that the test is useful in early diagnosis of the diabetic CNS impairment.