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Long‐term improvement of musician's dystonia after stereotactic ventro‐oral thalamotomy
Author(s) -
Horisawa Shiro,
Taira Takaomi,
Goto Shinichi,
Ochiai Taku,
Nakajima Takeshi
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
annals of neurology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.764
H-Index - 296
eISSN - 1531-8249
pISSN - 0364-5134
DOI - 10.1002/ana.23877
Subject(s) - thalamotomy , dystonia , medicine , focal dystonia , movement disorders , physical medicine and rehabilitation , psychology , audiology , surgery , parkinson's disease , deep brain stimulation , psychiatry , disease
Objective Musician's dystonia is a task‐specific movement disorder that causes twisting or repetitive abnormal finger postures and movements, which tend to occur only while playing musical instruments. Such a movement disorder will probably lead to termination of the careers of affected professional musicians. Most of the currently available treatments have yet to provide consistent and satisfactory results. We present the long‐term follow‐up results of ventro‐oral thalamotomy for 15 patients with musician's dystonia. Methods Between October 2003 and September 2010, 15 patients with medically intractable task‐specific focal hand dystonia that occurred only while playing musical instruments underwent ventro‐oral thalamotomy. We used Tubiana's musician's dystonia scale to evaluate the patients' pre‐ and postoperative neurological conditions. Results All patients except 1 (93%) experienced dramatic improvement of dystonic symptoms immediately after ventro‐oral thalamotomy. The mean follow‐up period was 30.8 months (range = 4–108 months). None of the patients experienced recurrence or deterioration of symptoms during the follow‐up periods. Interpretation Ventro‐oral thalamotomy remarkably improved musician's dystonia, and the effect persisted for a long duration. Ann Neurol 2013;74:648–654