Movement Disorders

Movement disorders are neurological conditions that affect the speed, fluency, quality, and ease of movement. Dyskinesia is abnormal fluency or speed of movement. Hyperkinesia is excessive or involuntary movement. Hypokinesia is slowed or absent voluntary movement.

Ataxia- A movement disorder affects the part of the brain that controls coordinated movement (cerebellum). Ataxia may cause uncoordinated or clumsy balance, speech or limb movements, and other symptoms.
Cervical Dystonia- A condition causes long-lasting contractions (spasms) or intermittent contractions of the neck muscles, causing the neck to turn in different ways.
Chorea- is characterized by repetitive, brief, irregular, somewhat rapid, involuntary movements that typically involve the face, mouth, trunk and limbs.
Dystonia- A condition involves sustained involuntary muscle contractions with twisting, repetitive movements. Dystonia may affect the entire body (generalized dystonia) or one part of the body (focal dystonia).
Functional Movement Disorder- A condition may resemble any of the movement disorders, but is not due to neurological disease.
Huntington’s Disease- An inherited progressive, neurodegenerative disorder that causes uncontrolled movements (chorea), impaired cognitive abilities and psychiatric conditions.
Multiple System Atrophy- An uncommon, progressive neurological disorder affects many brain systems. Multiple system atrophy causes a movement disorder, such as ataxia or parkinsonism. It can also cause low blood pressure and impaired bladder function.
Myoclonus- A condition causes lightning-quick jerks of a muscle or a group of muscles.
Parkinson’s Disease- A slowly progressive, neurodegenerative disorder causes tremor, stiffness (rigidity), slow decreased movement (bradykinesia) or imbalance. It may also cause other nonmovement symptoms.
Parkinsonism- A group of conditions that has symptoms similar to those of Parkinson’s disease.
Progressive Supranuclear Palsy- A rare neurological disorder that causes problems with walking, balance and eye movements. It may resemble Parkinson’s disease but is a distinct condition.
Restless Leg Syndrome- A movement disorder causes unpleasant, abnormal feelings in the legs while relaxing or lying down, often relieved by movement.
Tardive Diskinesia- A neurological condition is caused by long-term use of certain drugs used to treat psychiatric conditions (neuroleptic drugs). Tardive dyskinesia causes repetitive and involuntary movements such as grimacing, eye blinking and other movements.
Tourette Syndrome- A neurological condition that starts between childhood and teenage years and is associated with repetitive movements (motor tics) and vocal sounds (vocal tics).
Tremor- A movement disorder causes involuntary rhythmic shaking of parts of the body, such as the hands, head or other parts of the body. The most common type is essential tremor.
Wilson’s Disease- A rare inherited disease that causes copper build up in the system, which causes neurological problems.