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‘Heuristic’ is the kind of word we generally avoid in Practical Neurology. It’s not that the word is not useful, rather it is a bit recherché. And one of the coeditors is forever forgetting exactly what it means and thinks some readers may share this blind spot. A (or ‘an’?) heuristic is an approach to problem solving (from the Greek for ‘discover’), a short cut in thinking to help you reach the answer, or at least get close to a good answer. There are lots of subtypes—our word blind coeditor says in his defence—and are all prone to failure at times.
One heuristic helps to diagnose neuromuscular disorders: muscle weakness with muscle atrophy is caused by a neuromuscular disorder. Jon Walters turns this rule of thumb on its head and focuses on how muscle hypertrophy in patients with suspected muscle disease can provide a diagnostic …
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