Movement disorders comprise a wide range of neurological conditions. Parkinson’s disease is probably the most well-known, but dystonia, tics, Tourette’s, and tremors (among others) are also types of movement disorders.
Most movement disorders are caused by damage or dysfunction in a part of the brain called the basal ganglia. When the basal ganglia dysfunctions, the resulting problem can be either too much movement, as in tremor or tic, or not enough movement, as in rigidity or dystonia. Either way, the body can feel detached from oneself or life can feel like living in a cage, trapped inside a body that just won’t cooperate.
Besides the problem of not being able to move exactly the way you intend, or experiencing movements that are “happening to you,” the movement disorder patient also can experience pain, headache, social embarrassment, fatigue, and other symptoms that are secondary to the actual movement disorder. In fact, in our office, we often see patients who are coming to us for one of these other problems, and we find that a movement disorder is the cause of the problem.
A Functional Neurologist is trained to recognize the difference between too much movement (called a hyperkinetic movement disorder) and too little movement (called a hypokinetic movement disorder). Based on the findings of a complete examination, the Functional Neurologist can identify strategies to reduce symptoms in conjunction with pharmacological treatments.
