Introduction and Overview The term “dystonia” appears to have been first used when Oppenheim applied the description “dystonia musculorum deformans” in 1911 to a progressive childhood-onset syndrome characterized by twisted postures, muscle spasms, bizarre walking with bending and twisting of…
Introduction and Overview This chapter discusses diseases and disorders where chorea, athetosis, and ballism are prominent. Chorea, athetosis, and ballism are nonpatterned, hyperkinetic movement disorders which overlap and cannot be defined precisely as mutually exclusive phenomena. However, they are characterized…
Introduction and Overview Paroxysmal dyskinesias represent a group of hyperkinetic movement disorders that are characterized by episodes of abnormal movements that occur intermittently and unpredictably out of a background of normal activity. The specific type of dyskinesia may be dystonia, chorea…
Introduction and Overview The definition, characteristics, classification, pathophysiology, disorders, and treatment of motor stereotypies continue to evolve. Historically, stereotypic movement disorders in children have been linked to autism and intellectual impairment, although they commonly occur in typically developing children. Motor…
Introduction Tourette syndrome (TS), listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition (DSM-5) as Tourette disorder (TD), is named after the French physician Georges Gilles de la Tourette, who in 1885 reported nine patients with a…
Introduction The presence of a movement disorder in a child usually raises concerns about an underlying serious, progressive, degenerative, or metabolic disease. However, many movement disorders are benign and related to normal stages of development. In fact, it may be difficult…
Introduction Clinical assessment of movement disorders requires careful visual observation in order to fully characterize the phenomenology and the severity of the disorder. The definitions presented in Chapter 3 and detailed characteristics of individual movement disorders provided in Chapter 7,…
Introduction The approach to the diagnosis of a pediatric movement disorder often overlaps with other areas of pediatric medicine in requiring a careful medical, developmental, family, and social history and comprehensive physical examination. An additional requirement, however, is the need…
Introduction Movement disorders are neurological syndromes that involve impaired performance of voluntary movements, dysfunction of posture, the presence of abnormal involuntary movements, or the performance of normal-appearing movements at inappropriate or unintended times. The abnormalities of movement are not due…
Introduction and Overview The objective of this chapter is to provide an overview of the basic anatomic and functional organization of the cerebellum and its inflow and outflow pathways as they relate to motor function and diseases affecting motor control.…