What are the symptoms of dystonia?

Dystonia syndrome is also called dystonia. During activities, the patient's body posture is abnormal and different from that of normal people. The muscles and body cannot be coordinated, and the patient cannot straighten after forced bending. This is most obvious in the limbs. Patients with muscular tension cannot swing their bodies normally. Severe cases may lead to crooked mouth and squinting eyes, and even affect speaking function. Severe muscular tension can cause problems with the patient's ligaments and esophagus, so they are often greatly disturbed in eating and drinking, and have to choose some necessary methods to receive treatment.

Symptoms and signs

There is currently no consensus on the clinical classification of dystonia. The various classifications of dystonia are related to clinical characteristics, mainly based on the affected limbs and parts of the body, possible causes of dystonia, age at onset, etc.

1. The "Neurology" (1st edition, 2006) edited by Wang Weizhi in China introduces the following classifications:

(1) Classification by the site of involvement of the lesion:

① Localized dystonia: affects a certain part of the body, such as spasmodic torticollis, spasmodic dysphonia (vocal cords), blepharospasm, oromandibular dystonia, writer's cramp (one upper limb), occupational spasm, foot dystonia, etc.

② Segmental dystonia: It shows segmental distribution characteristics, such as craniocervical dystonia, upper limb dystonia with or without axial and head and neck dystonia, lower limb dystonia with or without truncal dystonia, trunk-neck (not affecting the head and face) dystonia, etc.

③Multi -site dystonia: affects more than two non-adjacent parts of the body.

④ Generalized dystonia: affects a wide range of the body.

⑤ Hemidystonia: only affects one side of the body.

(2) Classification by cause:

① Hereditary progressive dystonia: It mostly occurs in children, with symptoms of walking disorder and reduced movement, abnormal trunk posture, obvious forward bending of the waist, and obvious fluctuation of symptoms during the day, which are mild in the morning and worse in the afternoon and evening. It develops progressively. L-dopa has significant therapeutic effect. This disease may have similarities with Parkinson's disease.

② Symptomatic dystonia: such as cerebral palsy, stroke involving the basal ganglia, Wilson's disease, Hallervorden-Spatz disease, encephalitis, brain tumors, side effects of psychiatric drugs, etc. accompanied by dystonia. Parkinson's disease may sometimes be accompanied by dystonia.

(1) Classification by the scope of dystonia:

① Focal dystonia: When only the eyelid muscles are affected, it is called blepharospasm; when the perioral and mandibular muscles are affected, it is called oromandibular dystonia; when the disease affects the laryngeal muscles, it is called spasmodic dysphonia; when the disease affects the neck muscles, it is called spasmodic torticollis; when the disease affects the forearms and hands, it is called writer's cramp.

② Segmental dystonia: When the muscles of the skull and neck are affected, it is called cranial segmental dystonia; when the neck and trunk are affected, it is called axial segmental dystonia; when one arm and the longitudinal trunk or both upper arms are affected, it is called brachial segmental dystonia; when one femoral muscle and trunk or both femoral muscles are affected (with or without trunk involvement), it is called crural segmental dystonia.