Radiculopathy is caused by a pinched nerve in your spine. More specifically, it happens when one of your nerve roots (where your nerves join your spinal column) is compressed or irritated. Your spinal cord runs downward through a canal in the center of vertebrae in the spine.

Understanding the Context

Nerve roots branch off the cord and go between the individual vertebrae. When problems affect these nerve roots, the condition is called radiculopathy. Radiculopathy refers to symptoms that develop when there is compression of a spinal nerve root. Most commonly, the nerve compression is related to a disc herniation or spondylosis (degenerative changes in the spine) and may occur with or without trauma.

Key Insights

Radiculopathy describes a nerve being pinched by the spine. Learn the causes of this condition, how it is diagnosed, and more. Radiculopathy is caused by compression or irritation of a nerve as it exits the spinal column. Symptoms of radiculopathy include pain, numbness, tingling, or weakness in the arms or legs. Radiculopathy refers to a set of symptoms that occur from spinal nerve root compression.

Final Thoughts

Pain, muscle weakness, and numbness are symptoms, presenting either individually or in some combination. Radiculopathy is best defined as the complex of the neurological signs of radicular nerve pain but always includes a neurological loss such as weakness, numbness, and/or loss of a deep tendon reflex. The meaning of RADICULOPATHY is irritation of or injury to a spinal nerve root (as from being compressed) that typically causes pain, numbness, or muscle weakness in the part of the body which is supplied with nerves from that root : a pinched nerve of the cervical, thoracic, or lumbar region of the spinal column.