Dystonia is an involuntary neurological movement disorder in which a muscle (focal dystonia) or group of muscles contract (segmental dystonia), causing tortuous body movements, tremors, and abnormal gestures or repetitive movements. Sometimes this disorder causes pain and affects any part of the body, including the arms, trunk, neck, eyelids, mouth, and vocal cords. In 1911, Herman Oppenheim, a Berlin neurologist, first discovered this disorder and described the symptoms. Those diagnosed with dystonia usually have normal intelligence and are not associated with psychiatric disorders. It is the third most common movement disorder after Parkinson’s Disease and Tremor, affecting more than 300,000 people in North America (according to the Dystonia Study Medical Research.), and all races and ethnic groups. Ashkenazi Jews have a large disorder, about 1 in 10,000, due to a mutation, called a founder mutation, that is passed from the original carrier gene to later generations. In some cases, the symptoms of this disorder affect the side when taking medication and result from a specific form of lung cancer. Sometimes, writer’s block (task-specific), spastic typing, and musician’s block, musician’s block, and directing articulation are associated with symptoms of dystonia. Dystonia or idiopathic is commonly referred to genetic mutation (Torsion dystonia or hereditary dystonia), which symptoms are first observed in childhood around the age twelve Characterized by involuntary movements, usually starting in the arms or legs, and eventually affecting the rest of the body, within about five years. The disorder is not fatal, but it is seriously debilitating. Over time, these children reach adulthood in a wheelchair due to a lack of simple motor skills.
Classifications of dystonia according to the parts of the body affected: The most common type of dystonia is Spasmodic torticollis (cervical dystonia). Symptoms include intermittent spasms of the neck muscles, causing involuntary rotation and tilting of the head. These movements are often painful. This disorder affects the muscles of the larynx, reducing the voice to a broken sound or a whisper. Most individuals experience their first experiences in middle age. This disorder has three varieties, causing turning of the head to one side, clonic, and moving head movement, and mixed tonic and clonic. Approximately ten to twenty percent of those with Spasmodic Toricoles experience spontaneous remission, although it may not be long-lasting. The second common type of dystonia is Blepharospasm: The symptoms are involuntary forced closing of the eyelids, which begins with an uncontrollable nictitation. Often only one eye is affected, but eventually both eyes are usually involved. Despite having good vision, nerve compressions can cause the eyelids to close completely, resulting in blindness. Oromandibular dystonia affects the muscles of the jaw, lip and tongue. The jaws are characterized by being pulled either open or closed, and speech and swallowing become difficult. Cranial dystonia describes the feeling of the muscles of the head, mouth and neck. Oromandibular dystonia affects the muscles of the jaw and tongue, causing a deformity of the mouth and tongue. Meige’s syndrome is a combination of blepharospan and oromandibular dystonia. Sometimes causing spasmodic dysphonia.
Published in the September 1997 issue of Nature Genetics, the study supported the National-Institute of neurological disorders and stroke ( NINDS), located in Bethesda, Maryland (a major supporter of research in the brain and nervous system) has discovered the gene responsible for the first onset of torsion dystonia. You will find the gene, it will facilitate the early diagnosis of this disease and investigate the factors that contribute to dystonia. The inherited pattern of the dystonia gene is dominant over the pattern of normal inheritance. Thirty to forty percent of people who have the altered gene develop symptoms that are called “penetrant.” Giovanna Spinella M.D. A pediatric neurologist at NINDS said: “We know that people carrying the mutated gene are vulnerable only at a certain age, between the ages of 5 to 28. When carriers of the gene cross this age, it is very likely that they will develop the disorder. This means that there must be some environmental or biological influencing factors gene expression around the time of life.
Treatment options for dystonia include anticholinergic medications, such as trihexyphenidyl and benztropine. These drugs are often significantly effective, however, due to dose dependence side effects of sedation, oral sedation, dry mouth and shortness of breath. -term memory Benzodiazepines are effective in reducing dystonic muscle spasms sedation, and cognitive effects. Effective treatment for focal and segmental dystonia: administering chemodenervation injections and botulinum toxin type A and type B intramuscularly. The drug provides correction of abnormal positions. Combined with available drug treatments, physical-therapy when well-suited, can help dystonic bucks patients.
A study published in the November 9, 2006, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine confirmed previous evidence of a newly developed surgical treatment: deep brain stimulation cerebri offers dramatic benefits to dystonia patients compared to other treatment options. Surgical treatment relieved painful symptoms associated with involuntary. Researchers at ten medical centers in Germany, Norway and Austria implanted electrodes into the brains of 40 dystonia patients, but only half of that number actually received implanted neurostimulation. After the study, all dystonia patients were stimulated by the same implant. Medtronic’s implantable neurostimulation system – consisting of a device similar to a cardiac pacemaker, with extensions to two thin insulated wires called leads, inserted into the brain (on either side). The electrical impulses are precisely targeted to areas of the brain involved in motor control. According to Dr. Kathryn Halloway, head researcher: “The study shows that many forms of dystonia respond well to the new treatment.” Improved motor score reached 46 percent. Surgery is also more effective if performed earlier in the course of the disease, and is equally effective in treating long-term symptoms in patients. Lamictal side effects noted in the study included infections at the trigger site, accumulation of body fluids around the surgical site or lead fractures and twelve percent experienced speech problems after surgery. United States Food and Drug Administration Medtronic approved deep brain stimulation therapy to treat various classifications of dystonia , in patients aged seven years.
