The term "movement disorders" refers to a group of neurological conditions that cause abnormal increased movements, which may be voluntary or involuntary. Movement disorders can also cause reduced or slow movements.
Common types of movement disorders include:
- Ataxia- may cause uncoordinated or clumsy balance, speech or limb movements, and other symptoms.
- Cervical dystonia- causes long-lasting contractions (spasms) or intermittent contractions of the neck muscles, causing the neck to turn in different ways.
- Chorea-Repetitive, brief, irregular, somewhat rapid, involuntary movements that typically involve the face, mouth, trunk and limbs.
- Dystonia- involves sustained involuntary muscle contractions with twisting, repetitive movements
- Functional movement disorder
- Huntington’s disease-This is an inherited progressive, neurodegenerative disorder that causes uncontrolled movements (chorea), impaired cognitive abilities and psychiatric conditions.
- Multiple system atrophy-This uncommon, progressive neurological disorder affects many brain systems.
- Myoclonus-causes lightning-quick jerks of a muscle or a group of muscles.
- Parkinson’s disease-slowly progressive, neurodegenerative disorder causes tremor, stiffness (rigidity), slow decreased movement (bradykinesia) or imbalance.
- Parkinsonism-describes a group of conditions that has symptoms similar to those of Parkinson’s disease.
- Progressive supranuclear palsy causes problems with walking, balance and eye movements.
- Restless legs syndrome-causes unpleasant, abnormal feelings in the legs while relaxing or lying down, often relieved by movement.
- Tardive dyskinesia-caused by long-term use of certain drugs used to treat psychiatric conditions (neuroleptic drugs).
- Tourette syndrome-starts between childhood and teenage years and is associated with repetitive movements (motor tics) and vocal sounds (vocal tics).
- Tremor-causes involuntary rhythmic shaking of parts of the body, such as the hands, head or other parts of the body.
Wilson’s disease. This is a rare inherited disorder that causes excessive amounts of copper to build up in the body, causing neurological problem