​Dystonia

Diagnosing Dystonia

Dystonia can affect one muscle, a group of muscles (such as arms or legs), or the entire body.

Dystonia symptoms

Your doctor will ask you about your symptoms, which may include:

• Muscle spasms
• Shaking (tremors)
• Repetitive movements
• Difficulty controlling hands or poor handwriting
• Difficulty speaking
• Foot cramps
• Dragging foot
  

Identifying the type of dystonia

To determine what form of dystonia you have, four factors will be taken into consideration:

• Age when symptoms began
• Body part(s) affected
• Cause of the dystonia, if known
• Symptoms of other neurological disorders

Dystonia Treatments

Although dystonia is a chronic condition and the symptoms can be severe, most dystonia does not impact a person’s intelligence, cognition, or life span.

Dystonia treatment options depend on the severity of symptoms and take into consideration any related conditions you have.

Medication, therapy, and complementary treatments

Medications and physical therapy, including voice therapy, are often the first treatment approaches for dystonia.

Drugs that help one person may not help another, so your doctor will work with you to determine the formulation best suited to your case.

In addition to oral medication, injection of botulinum neurotoxin into muscles affected by dystonia may also be used.

Other helpful treatments may include:

• Relaxation exercises
• Gentle exercise including yoga.

Surgery for dystonia

In order to limit or stop involuntary muscle spasms and lessen pain, doctors can operate:

• At the site of dystonic symptoms (such as muscles or nerves in the legs)
• In the basal ganglia of the brain, where the signals to move the body originate.

In this type of surgery, selected nerves or abnormal brain tissue are destroyed and/or removed.

Deep brain stimulation

UPMC is a leader in treating movement disorders such as dystonia with deep brain stimulation (DBS), and now offers both standard and MRI-guided DBS, depending on your condition.

Deep brain stimulation delivers electrical stimulation to targeted areas in the brain that control movement, blocking the neuronal signals that cause abnormal movement. DBS gives significant benefit in about 70 percent of people who undergo the procedure.