Rehabilitation of focal hand dystonia in musicians: a systematic review of the studies.

Abstract

Focal hand dystonia in musicians is a task-specific movement disorder characterized by an involuntary loss of control and coordination of finger movements during instrumental playing. Literature searches with the keywords 'dystonia' AND 'musician' AND 'finger' OR 'treatment' OR 'therapy' OR 'rehabilitation' were conducted in PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library and Web of Science to perform the systematic review about the several strategies used to treat dystonia in musicians. The search was performed independently by two authors (R.C. and M.V.) from 6 April 2020 till 6 June 2020. The research identified a total of 423 articles. Seventy-seven selected articles were analysed by the reviewers. Thirty-six publications met the inclusion criteria and were included in the systematic review. The systematic review was performed to identify the main used treatments for dystonia in musicians. We defined the several techniques to better guide the physician to delineate a rehabilitation protocol adopting the better strategies described in the current literature. This systematic review tried to provide to the reader a complete overview of the literature of all possible different treatments for dystonia in musicians. A correct protocol could permit to improve the motor performance and the quality of life of musicians.