1 Before you use it
What it is
A four-item cluster for cervical radiculopathy, and one of the few clusters in the corpus with a large enough likelihood ratio to change what you do.
Upper Limb Neurodynamic Test 1 (median) · cervical rotation to the involved side less than 60° · cervical distraction test · Cervical Compression test (Spurling's in the literature).
When to reach for it
Any suspected cervical radiculopathy — arm pain, dermatomal symptoms, weakness or reflex change.
Always alongside a full neurological examination recording power, reflexes and sensation, bilaterally.
Patterns it serves · 1
2 Giving it
Scoring
Count the positives out of four. The value climbs steeply with the number positive — one item is close to meaningless, all four is a strong shift.
UniSA naming applies: Cervical Compression, not Spurling's. Record the neurodynamic test bilaterally.
What it doesn’t measure
It does not localise the level, and it does not distinguish radicular pain from radiculopathy. It also says nothing about myelopathy — screen that separately.
Pair it with: painDETECT for the neuropathic component, and the NDI for baseline function.
3 Reading the score
Interpreting it
No verified sensitivity, specificity or likelihood ratio is carried in our library and none is printed here — read Wainner et al. 2003 for the figures.
The teaching point is the structure, not the numbers. ULNT1 is the sensitive item and works as a rule-out; distraction and compression are the specific items and work as rule-ins. A negative ULNT1 does most of the ruling out; four out of four does the ruling in.
Is the change real?
Student trap. Running one item and calling it a cluster. The whole point of a cluster is that the items are only useful together.
Official source: null. We don't host the form.
This is a learning tool. It does not diagnose patients and does not replace your clinical educator.
Did this page do its job?
CliniStudy is in beta. One tap is enough — it decides what gets fixed first.