title: Paroxysmal dyskinesias: clinical features and classification.
abstract: We studied 46 patients with paroxysmal dyskinesia and classified them according to phenomenology, duration of attacks, and etiology. There were 13 patients, 7 females, who had paroxysmal kinesigenic dyskinesia (PKD), 10 with attacks lasting 5 minutes or less (short lasting) and 3 with attacks lasting longer than 5 minutes (long lasting). Twenty-six patients, 18 females, had paroxysmal nonkinesigenic dyskinesia (PNKD), 9 with short-lasting and 17 with long-lasting PNKD. Five patients, 3 females, had paroxysmal exertion-induced dyskinesia (PED), 3 with short-lasting PED and the other 2 with long-lasting PED. In addition, there was 1 patient with paroxysmal hypnogenic dyskinesia (PHD) and 1 with paroxysmal superior oblique myokymia. Only 2 patients, 1 with PKD and 1 with PHD, had family history of paroxysmal dyskinesias. No specific cause could be identified in 21 patients; in the other 23 patients the etiologies included the following: psychogenic (9 patients), cerebrovascular diseases (4), multiple sclerosis (2), encephalitis (2), cerebral trauma (2), peripheral trauma (2), migraine (1), and kernicterus (1). Nine of 10 (90%) patients with PKD improved with medications, mostly anticonvulsants, compared with only 7 of 19 (37%) with PNKD. This new classification, based chiefly on precipitating events, allowed appropriate categorization of the attacks in all our patients with paroxysmal dyskinesias.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Demirkiran
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jankovic
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D017668:Age of Onset; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009069:Movement Disorders / Q000145:classification* / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000503:physiopathology*