Articles

The diagnostic value of saccades in movement disorder patients: a practical guide and review

Saccades are rapid eye movements designed to shift the fovea to objects of visual interest. Abnormalities of saccades offer important clues in the diagnosis of a number of movement disorders. In this review, w...

Authors: Pichet Termsarasab, Thananan Thammongkolchai, Janet C. Rucker and Steven J. Frucht

Evaluating the musician with dystonia of the upper limb: a practical approach with video demonstration

Focal task-specific dystonia is an unusual movement disorder that may affect musicians specifically when they perform on their instruments. Muscles of the lower face, lower limb and upper limb may be involved ...

Authors: Steven J. Frucht

Pseudobulbar laughter as a levodopa off phenomenon exacerbated by subthalamic deep brain stimulation

Pseudobulbar affect is a common symptom in neurodegenerative diseases and can also result from lesions in cortical, subcortical and brainstem regions. In Parkinson’s disease (PD), pseudobulbar affect (PBA) can...

Authors: P. K. Chattha, P. E. Greene and Ritesh A. Ramdhani

Jerky dystonic shoulder following infarction of the posterior thalamus

The syndrome of the jerky dystonic hand is recognized as a consequence of infarction of the posterior thalamus. A patient with multiple risk factors for stroke developed jerky dystonia of more proximal involve...

Authors: Ruth H. Walker

Reversible craniocervical dystonia associated with levofloxacin

Dystonia is a hyperkinetic movement disorder related to dysfunction of inhibitory basal ganglia and cortical circuits. GABA is the major inhibitory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system. Quinolones ca...

Authors: Karlo J Lizarraga, Maria R Lopez and Carlos Singer

Multidisciplinary intensive rehabilitation treatment improves sleep quality in Parkinson’s disease

Sleep disturbances are among the most common non-motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease (PD), greatly interfering with daily activities and diminishing life quality. Pharmacological treatments have not been sat...

Authors: Giuseppe Frazzitta, Roberto Maestri, Davide Ferrazzoli, Giulio Riboldazzi, Rossana Bera, Cecilia Fontanesi, Roger P Rossi, Gianni Pezzoli and Maria F Ghilardi

Arrhythmokinesis is evident during unimanual not bimanual finger tapping in Parkinson’s disease

Arrhythmokinesis, the variability in repetitive movements, is a fundamental feature of Parkinson’s disease (PD). We hypothesized that unimanual repetitive alternating finger tapping (AFT) would reveal more arr...

Authors: Megan H Trager, Anca Velisar, Mandy Miller Koop, Lauren Shreve, Emma Quinn and Helen Bronte-Stewart

Effect of prior exposure to dopamine agonists on treatment with gabapentin enacarbil in adults with moderate-to-severe primary restless legs syndrome: pooled analyses from 3 randomized trials

Dopamine agonists (DAs) are a first-line therapy for moderate-to-severe restless legs syndrome (RLS), but these treatments may lead to complications, such as augmentation and impulse control disorders, requiri...

Authors: William G Ondo, Neal Hermanowicz, Diego García Borreguero, Mark J Jaros, Richard Kim and Gwendoline Shang

Isolated vocal tremor as a focal phenotype of essential tremor: a retrospective case review

Essential tremor (ET) is a common condition associated with significant physical and psychosocial disability. “Classic” ET is a clinical syndrome of action tremor in the upper limbs and less commonly the head,...

Authors: Amar Patel and Steven J Frucht

Lexical diversity in Parkinson’s disease

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative syndrome of the basal ganglia (BG) believed to disrupt cortical-subcortical pathways critical to motor, cognitive and expressive language function. Recent studie...

Authors: Charles Ellis, Yolanda F Holt and Thomas West

Detecting position dependent tremor with the Empirical mode decomposition

Primary bowing tremor (PBT) occurs in violinists in the right bowing-arm and is a highly nonlinear and non-stationary signal. However, Fourier-transform based methods (FFT) make the a priori assumption of line...

Authors: André Lee and Eckart Altenmüller

Repetitive finger movement performance differs among Parkinson’s disease, Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, and spinocerebellar ataxia

Differentiating movement disorders is critical for appropriate treatment, prognosis, and for clinical trials. In clinical trials this is especially important as effects can be diluted by inclusion of inappropr...

Authors: Elizabeth L Stegemöller, Jennifer Uzochukwu, Mark D Tillman, Nikolaus R McFarland, SH Subramony, Michael S Okun and Chris J Hass

Cortical Tremor (CT) with coincident orthostatic movements

Cortical tremor (CT) is a form of cortical reflex myoclonus that can mimic essential tremor (ET). Clinical features that are helpful in distinguishing CT from ET are the irregular and jerky appearance of the m...

Authors: Pichet Termsarasab and Steven J Frucht

Severe Sydenham’s chorea (chorea paralytica) successfully treated with plasmapheresis

Sydenham’s chorea is often regarded as a relatively benign and self-limiting condition. Treatment is typically symptomatic, although occasionally immunomodulatory therapies are required in severe forms. Here w...

Authors: Marcelo Miranda, Ruth H Walker, David Saez and Victoria Renner

Freezing of gait and white matter changes: a tract-based spatial statistics study

We hypothesized that the integrity of white matter might be related to the severity of freezing of gait in age-related white matter changes.

Authors: Kazumi Iseki, Hidenao Fukuyama, Naoya Oishi, Hidekazu Tomimoto, Yoshinobu Otsuka, Manabu Nankaku, David Benninger, Mark Hallett and Takashi Hanakawa

Prevalence of depression in Parkinson’s disease patients in Ethiopia

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is associated with cognitive and psychiatric disturbances including depression, anxiety, psychotic symptoms and sleep disturbances. These psychiatric manifestations have a negative imp...

Authors: Dawit Kibru Worku, Yared Mamushet Yifru, Douglas G Postels and Fikre Enquselassie Gashe

Writer’s cramp as a presentation of L-2-hydroxyglutaric aciduria

L-2-hydroxyglutaric aciduria (L2HGA) is a neurometabolic disorder characterized by macrocephaly, seizures, progressive mental retardation, pyramidal signs, ataxia and tremor. Dystonia is an under-recognized fe...

Authors: Pichet Termsarasab and Steven J Frucht

Epidemiology and treatment of 23 musicians with task specific tremor

Task specific tremors in musicians have been mainly described as primary bowing tremor in string instrumentalists in relatively small sample sizes. Our aim was to describe epidemiology, risk factors, phenomeno...

Authors: André Lee, Shinichi Furuya and Eckart Altenmüller

Testosterone level and the effect of levodopa and agonists in early Parkinson disease: results from the INSPECT cohort

To determine if testosterone levels are influenced by dopaminergic therapy in Parkinson disease (PD) patients. Testosterone level has been reported to be low in patients with PD and other neurodegenerative dis...

Authors: Michael S Okun, Samuel S Wu, Dana Jennings, Kenneth Marek, Ramon L Rodriguez and Hubert H Fernandez

Clinical and programming pattern of patients with impending deep brain stimulation power failure: a retrospective chart review

It is important to prevent complications of implanted pulse generators (IPG) depletion by replacing the IPG in time.

Authors: Raja Mehanna, Kathy M Wilson, Scott E Cooper, Andre G Machado and Hubert H Fernandez

Upper facial chorea in Huntington disease

To provide a systematic description of component movements of upper facial chorea in Huntington disease, consecutive videos of 25 active patients with confirmed diagnosis were scored on eye opening, eye closin...

Authors: Robert Fekete and Joseph Jankovic

The phenomenology and natural history of idiopathic lower cranial dystonia

Many patients with lower cranial dystonia (LCrD) are misdiagnosed, and recognition of this condition by general practitioners and dental health professionals is limited.

Authors: Pichet Termsarasab, Donald R Tanenbaum and Steven J Frucht

What light have resting state fMRI studies shed on cognition and mood in Parkinson’s disease?

Much remains unknown about non-motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease (PD), which have variable occurrence, progression, and severity among patients. The existing suite of neuroimaging tools has yielded insight...

Authors: Sophie YorkWilliams and Kathleen L Poston

Hydrocephalic Parkinsonism: lessons from normal pressure hydrocephalus mimics

Hydrocephalus is an under-recognized presentation of progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB).

Authors: Brian W Starr, Matthew C Hagen and Alberto J Espay

Clinical movement disorders – a new era

Authors: Steven J Frucht