Background: Palatal myoclonus occurs, unilaterally or bilaterally, at 1.5 to 3Hz and is frequently accompanied by synchronous movements of adjacent muscles such as the external ocular muscles, tongue, larynx, face, neck, or diaphragm.
Occasionally
limb
muscles can be involved. Common to all the secondary causes appears to be a lesion in the pathway from the dentate nucleus to the inferior olive via the red nucleus, on the so called "Guillain-Mollaret triangle".
Case: A 74-year-old man was admitted to our hospital because of quadriparesis and pseudobulbar palsy. He had been left hemiparesis and clicking noise since 1987, his second CVA attack. On admission, he showed bilaterally rhythmic palatal
myoclonus,
persisting during sleep. Involoved muscles were right lip and both soft palate, tongue pharynx and larynx. The T2-weighted brain MR imaging showed high signal intensities in both central tegmental tracts.
Conclusions: we therefore report a case of palatal myoclonus which had lesion of dentatorubro-olivary pathway.
|