Rare diseases · Sign or symptom
Upper limb muscle weakness
Decreased arm strength
HP:0003484
What it means
Weakness of the muscles of the arms.
Rare diseases that can present with this32
Very common80–99%
4Common30–79%
14- Adult-onset nemaline myopathy
- Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
- Autosomal dominant Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 2Z
- Autosomal recessive spastic paraplegia type 20
- Autosomal recessive spastic paraplegia type 55
- Distal hereditary motor neuropathy type 5
- Encephalitis lethargica
- Gamma-sarcoglycan-related limb-girdle muscular dystrophy R5
- Glycogen storage disease with severe cardiomyopathy due to glycogenin deficiency
- Hemangioblastoma
- Kjellin syndrome
- Neurogenic arthrogryposis multiplex congenita
- Postsynaptic congenital myasthenic syndrome
- Sandhoff disease, adult form
Sometimes5–29%
13- Acute transverse myelitis
- Adult Krabbe disease
- Autosomal dominant adult-onset proximal spinal muscular atrophy
- Combined oxidative phosphorylation defect type 7
- Extracranial carotid artery aneurysm
- Familial infantile bilateral striatal necrosis
- Intellectual disability-facial dysmorphism-hand anomalies syndrome
- Late-infantile/juvenile Krabbe disease
and 5 more in this range
The range is how often this sign appears among people diagnosed with each disease — it is not a probability of having any of them. Many of these signs also occur in common, non-rare conditions. A sign on this page is a conversation to have with a clinician, not a conclusion.
Part of the broader category
Also called: Weak arm
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Start free with EleplanThis page uses the Human Phenotype Ontology (2026-06-23) — Human Phenotype Ontology Consortium, hpo.jax.org. Disease associations from Orphanet (INSERM), CC BY 4.0. Content is educational and is not medical advice.