Dyskinesia Health Dictionary

Abnormal muscular movements. Uncontrollable twitching, jerking, or writhing movements cannot be suppressed and may affect control of voluntary movements. The disorder may involve the whole body or be restricted to a group of muscles. Types of dyskinesia include chorea (jerking movements), athetosis (writhing), choreoathetosis (a combined form), myoclonus (muscle spasms), tics (repetitive fidgets), and tremors. Dyskinesia may result from brain damage at birth or may be a side effect of certain drugs (see tardive dyskinesia), which often disappears when the drug is stopped. Otherwise, dyskinesia is difficult to treat. (See also parkinsonism.)

Abnormal movements of the muscles resulting from disorder of the brain. Movements are uncoordinated and involuntary and occur in facial as well as limb muscles. They include athetosis (writhing movements), CHOREA (jerking movements predominate), choreoathetosis (a combined type), myoclonus (spasms), tics and tremors.

n. a group of involuntary movements that appear to be a fragmentation of the normal smoothly controlled limb and facial movements. They include *chorea, *dystonia, *athetosis, and those involuntary movements occurring as side-effects to the use of levodopa and the phenothiazines (see tardive dyskinesia).