AFM is diagnosed by examining a person's nervous system in combination with reviewing images of the spinal cord. A doctor can examine a person's nervous system and the places on the body where he or she has weakness, poor muscle tone, and decreased reflexes. In addition, a doctor can do magnetic resonance imaging to look at a person's brain and spinal cord, do laboratory tests on the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF, the fluid around the brain and spinal cord), and may check nerve conduction (impulse sent along a nerve fiber) and response. Diagnosis of AFM requires acute onset limb paralysis and at least one gray-matter spinal-cord lesion. CSF should show pleocytosis.
Acute flaccid myelitis
Vascular myelopathy
CMV polyradiculomyelopathy
Guillain–Barré syndrome
Subacute combined degeneration of spinal cord
Paraneoplastic cerebellar degeneration
Transverse myelitis
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis