Long-Term Treatment of Focal Dystonias (Cervical and Writer’s Cramp): Clinical and Quality of Life Impact

Abstract

Dystonias are a group of disorders with many different clinical manifestations but with certain common features. Affected patients share involuntary sustained or intermittent muscle contractions that cause abnormal postures and/or repetitive movements. The most common forms of adult-onset focal dystonias are cervical dystonia, blepharospasm, oromandibular dystonia, laryngeal dystonia, and limb dystonias such as writer’s cramp. In this chapter, we were interested in certain aspects of the long-term treatment of two focal dystonias, cervical dystonia and limb dystonia (writer’s cramp), with botulinum toxin A (BoNT-A).