Pediatric movement disorders

Pediatric movement disorders are a heterogeneous group of symptoms that occur in the context of a large number of different neurological diseases. Accurate diagnosis and quantification of these disorders is essential for determining outcome, appropriate treatment, and criteria for inclusion in research trials. The purpose of this review is to summarize recent advances in diagnosis and treatment for childhood movement disorders.

The ultimate goal is to discover new treatments that can lead to measurable improvement in functional outcome for affected children. In order to accomplish this goal, we must have consistent definitions and accurate measurements to determine the diagnosis and severity for each child in a clinic or research trial. Recent progress in defining childhood movement disorders has led to consensus definitions of different types of hypertonia. There has also been progress in the development of outcome measures that relate to meaningful functional performance in a variety of skill areas. Most exciting is the prospect of new treatments, and we survey the current non-medical, medical, and surgical therapies for childhood motor disorders.

Although pediatric movement disorders are a complex and often poorly understood group of symptoms, recent work has shown that there is a possibility of defining, measuring, and ultimately treating these debilitating diseases.