MULTIMODAL NEUROREHABILITATION IMPROVES A PHENOTYPE OF BLEPHAROCLONUS IN A 37 YEAR OLD WOMAN
-
1
Carrick Institute, United States
Background:
A 37 year old female presented with a multiple year history of progressively worsening symptoms of having difficulty keeping her eyes open during certain activities: driving, maintaining eye-level gaze during conversation--especially with increasing cognitive load. She described eyelid "fluttering" and the sensation that her eyes would close. She often looked downward to alleviate the symptoms. She was no longer able to drive.
Methods:
With her eyes closed, the eyelids moved spontaneously in an open-close vector. The eyelids fluttered quickly. Neurological examination revealed that cerebellar testing, light, sound and optokinetic testing all accelerated the eyes-closed eyelid movement. Examination also revealed expansion of the muscle stretch reflexes when tapping both thenar eminences.
A four day multimodal program utilizing uniplanar movements, patellar tendon taps, diaphragmatic breathing. Both light and sound were attenuated with colored lenses and earplugs.
Results:
After four days of the treatment program, the frequency of the eyes-closed eyelid movement was significantly slowed--bordering on normal. Cerebellar testing no longer accelerated the eyelid movement.Two weeks later, the improvement in the eyes-closed eyelid movements had been maintained. The patient had been consistently following a home regimen that included the patellar tendon taps, breathing and progressive elevation of central gaze position. She reported a significant subjective improvement in the frequency and duration of her presenting symptoms. At 30 day follow up, the progress was still being maintained.
Conclusions: The author suggests further investigation into treating blepharoclonus-like symptoms with multimodal forms of neurorehabilitation.
Keywords:
Blepharoclonus,
Mesencephalon,
Neurorehabilitation,
Cerebellum,
plasticity
Conference:
International Symposium on Clinical Neuroscience 2018, Orlando, Florida, United States, 24 May - 26 May, 2018.
Presentation Type:
Poster
Topic:
Clinical Applications in health, disease, and injury to the nervous system
Citation:
Clark
DJ
(2018). MULTIMODAL NEUROREHABILITATION IMPROVES A PHENOTYPE OF BLEPHAROCLONUS IN A 37 YEAR OLD WOMAN.
Front. Neurol.
Conference Abstract:
International Symposium on Clinical Neuroscience 2018.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fneur.2018.60.00023
Copyright:
The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers.
They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters.
The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated.
Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed.
For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions.
Received:
26 Feb 2018;
Published Online:
14 Dec 2018.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. David J Clark, Carrick Institute, Cape Canaveral, United States, mail@doctordavidclark.com