Session Information
Date: Thursday, June 8, 2017
Session Title: Dystonia
Session Time: 1:15pm-2:45pm
Location: Exhibit Hall C
Objective: To assess depressive, anxiety, fatigue and dissociative symptoms in patients with dystonia.
Background: The basal ganglia, once considered exclusively concerned with motor control, are now recognized to have a role in psychiatric disorder as well as sensory perception, cognition and sleep regulation. An excess of psychopathology in inherited dystonia—depression in DYT1 and anxiety spectrum disorders in DYT11 (myoclonus dystonia)—has been reported, with a pattern of expression that suggests that they are part of dystonia’s endophenotype.(1) Case-controlled research also shows an increased prevalence of depression, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive traits in most of the adult-onset idiopathic focal dystonia.(2)
Methods: 36 patients with cervical and/or limb dystonia and 26 control subjects were asked to complete a hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS), fatigue severity scale and the Cambridge depersonalization scale. Data was analysed for statistical significance by Mann-Whitney U test using SPSS software.
Results: Scores for HADS-anxiety (p < 0.01), HADS-depression (p < 0.005), the fatigue severity scale (p < 0.01) and the Cambridge depersonalization scale (p < 0.05) were all significantly higher in the dystonia group.
Conclusions: Patients with dystonia in this study had higher levels of fatigue, anxiety and depressive and dissociative symptomatology than healthy controls. Altered cortico-striatal connectivity may explain the increased incidence of psychomorbidity and dissociation in dystonic disorders.
References:
- Peall KJ, Kuiper A, de Koning TJ, Tijssen MAJ. Non-motor symptoms in genetically defined dystonia: homogenous groups require systematic assessment. Parkinsonism Relat Disord 2015; 21: 1031 – 1040.
- Fabbrini G, Berardelli I, Moretti G, et al. Psychiatric disorders in adult-onset focal dystonia: a case control study. Mov Disord 2010; 25: 459 – 465.
To cite this abstract in AMA style:
R. Newby, J. Alty, S. Jamieson, S. Smith, P. Kempster. Self-assessed psychological symptoms, fatigue and depersonalization in dystonia [abstract]. Mov Disord. 2017; 32 (suppl 2). https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/self-assessed-psychological-symptoms-fatigue-and-depersonalization-in-dystonia/. Accessed June 15, 2025.« Back to 2017 International Congress
MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/self-assessed-psychological-symptoms-fatigue-and-depersonalization-in-dystonia/