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Movement disorders at a university hospital emergency room

An analysis of clinical pattern and etiology

Journal of Neurology volume 255, Article number: 745 (2008) Cite this article

Abstract

We prospectively evaluated the clinical features and etiologies of all common categories of movement disorder seen in the emergency room (ER) of an urban university hospital over a period of 12 months. We divided movement disorders according to the presenting phenomenology likely to dominate the clinical presentation, that is, gait disorder, tremor, dystonia, myoclonus, and acute akinetic crisis and classified a specific etiology in the individual phenomenology. In one year, there were 60,002 ER visits; of these, 58 (0.09 %) were diagnosed as a primary movement disorder. The most common clinical presentation was gait disorder (n = 21, 36.2 %), followed by myoclonus (n = 16, 27.6 %), dystonia (n = 10, 17.2 %), tremor (n = 8, 13.8 %), and acute akinetic crisis (n = 3, 5.2 %). Comparing the movement disorders, the mean age of the patients with dystonia was significantly lower than that of patients with other movement disorders (P < 0.001). Of the patients, 37 (63.8 %) had drug-related movement disorders. The contribution of drugs was significantly higher in patients with dystonia compared with the other movement disorders (P < 0.01). Our study showed that a large proportion of the movement disorders seen in the ER are drugrelated. Careful selection of drugs while prescribing would decrease movement disorder-related visits to the ER.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Neurology, Ajou University School of Medicine, South Korea

    J. H. Yoon M.D., S. W. Yong M.D., H. Y. Park M.D., T. S. Lim M.D. & J. Y. Choi M.D.

  2. Dept. of Neurology, Yonsei University College of Medicine, 134 Shinchon-dong, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, 120-752, South Korea

    P. H. Lee M.D., Ph.D.

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  1. J. H. Yoon M.D.
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  2. P. H. Lee M.D., Ph.D.
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  3. S. W. Yong M.D.
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Yoon, J.H., Lee, P.H., Yong, S.W. et al. Movement disorders at a university hospital emergency room. J Neurol 255, 745 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-008-0789-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-008-0789-7

Key words

  • movement disorder
  • emergency room
  • clinical pattern
  • etiology