Jump to content

Hypotonia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Freestylefrappe (talk | contribs) at 01:01, 13 September 2004 (i'm having serious problems with editing....wheres the editing box?). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Hypotonia

Hypotonia is abnormally decreased muscle tone. Those who suffer from hypotonia are often described as feeling and appearing as though they are rag dolls and are unable to bend their ligaments while they are able to extend them beyond normal lengths. Often the movement of the head is uncontrollable; not in the sense of spasmatic movement, but chronic ataxia. Hypontonic patients fail to develop basic motor skills, posture control, and movement skills. Due to the looseness of a hypotonic patient's body, special care and attention must be given.

Diagnosing a patient includes obtaining family medical history and a physical examination including computerized tomography (CT) scans, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans, electroencephalogram (EEG), blood tests, chromosome karyotyping, spinal taps, electromyography muscle tests, and muscle and nerve biopsy (not all of these tests are routinely performed).

Hypotonia is a serious medical condition that is almost always found as early as infancy. Diagnosing hypotonia is usually relatively easy, what tends to be difficult for doctors is finding out what is causing the hypotonia. Despite the setbacks that hypotonia guarantees to a person's life, treatment and therapy can help hypotonic patients to adjust to their disability.

Overall causes of hypotonia are: 1. Central nervous system dysfunction 2. Genetic disorders (the most common cause) 3. Muscle disorders

Specific Causes of hypotonia are: Down syndrome Guillian-Barre syndrome myasthenia gravis poliomyelitis Prader-Willi syndrome Kernicterus Meningitis cerebellar ataxia, congenital encephalitis Werdnig-Hoffman myotonic dystrophy infant botulism familial dysautonomia (Riley-Day syndrome) Marfan's syndrome muscular dystrophy achondroplasia trisomy 13 sepsis Aicardi syndrome Canavan disease congenital hypothyroidism hypervitaminosis D Krabbe disease Menkes syndrome metachromatic leukodystrophy methylmalonic acidemia rickets spinal muscular atrophy type 1 Tay-Sachs disease vaccine reaction

External Links http://health.yahoo.com/health/ency/adam/003298/overview http://www.lightlink.com/vulcan/benign

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hypotonia&oldid=6034008"