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ATHETOSIS (Gr. seers, " without place ")

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Originally appearing in Volume V02, Page 846 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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ATHETOSIS (Gr. seers, " without See also:place ") , the medical See also:term applied to certain slow, purposeless, deliberate movements of the hands and feet. The fingers are separately flexed and extended, abducted and adducted in an entirely irregular way. The hands as a whole are also moved, and the arms, toes and feet may be affected. The See also:condition is usually due to some See also:lesion of the See also:brain which has caused hemiplegia, and is especially See also:common in childhood. It is occasionally congenital (so called), and is then due to some injury of the brain during See also:birth. It is more usually associated with hemiplegia, in which condition there is first of all See also:complete voluntary immobility of the parts affected: but later, as there is a return of a certain amount of See also:power over the limbs affected, the slow rhythmic movements of athetosis are first noticed. This never develops, however, where there is no recovery of voluntary power. Its See also:distribution is thus nearly always hemiplegic, and it is often associated with more or less See also:mental impairment. The movements may or may not continue during See also:sleep. They cannot be arrested for more than a moment by will power, and are aggravated by voluntary movements. The See also:prognosis is unsatisfactory, as the condition usually continues unchanged for years, though improvement occasionally occurs in slight cases, or even complete recovery.

End of Article: ATHETOSIS (Gr. seers, " without place ")

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