What is DYSTONIA Disease?
Dystonia disease is a type of neurological movement disorder syndrome in which involuntary, sustained or repetitive muscle contractions result in twisting and repetitive involuntary movements or abnormal postures. Dystonia is often intensified or exacerbated by physical activity. The emotions and symptoms may progress into adjacent muscles.
There are several types of Dystonia disease. Dystonia disease may be congenital or may caused by other factors such as birth-or other physical trauma, infection, poisoning or reaction to pharmaceutical drugs or stress.
Treatment must be highly customized to the needs of the individual and may include oral medications, botulinum neurotoxin injections (botox), physical therapy, or other supportive therapies, and surgical procedures such as deep brain stimulation.
Generally, we can evaluate dystonia disease in 2 different groups as primary and secondary.
Primary dystonia is suspected when the dystonia is the only sign and there is no identifiable cause or structural abnormality in the central nervous system. Deep Brain Stimulation (brain pacemaker) is an effective treatment method, especially on primary Dystonia. Deep Brain Stimulation improves the symptoms about 70% on Primary dystonia and 40% in secondary dystonia. If the symptoms are predominantly on neck there is a higher chance of benefiting from the surgery.