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• 2 Dystonia
  • 2.1 Twisted neck
  • 2.2 Eyelid spasm
  • 2.3 Writer’s cramp
    • 2.3.1 Symptoms
    • 2.3.2 Causes
    • 2.3.3 Diagnosis
    • 2.3.4 Therapy
  • 2.4 Vocal cord spasm
  • 2.5 Spasms of the mouth, tongue and pharynx

Symptoms

With writer’s cramp, cramp develops in the muscles of the hand and forearm, either immediately or shortly after the person has started writing; the muscles of the upper arm and shoulder are sometimes also involved. It is like when your arm “gets tired” after writing a lot of pages longhand and you want to give it a good shake, the difference being that writer’s cramp starts more or less immediately after you start writing. The result of the spasm is that either you hold your pen tightly between thumb and forefinger and your hand suddenly darts across the page, or your forefinger is abducted and you become unable to hold the pen. Your wrist may be severely bent or stretched, and your arm can rotate inwards or outwards. The upper arm and shoulder may also be involved in the spasm. About 25% of patients experience pain. The handwriting of those affected is impaired to varying degrees: it degenerates into a scrawl, the person cannot write in a straight line or the writing becomes totally illegible or the person becomes completely unable to write. Some patients have “writer’s block” with no pronounced muscle spasm.

Further cramps occur with dystonic writer’s cramp

If the cramp occurs exclusively during the activity of writing, this is called simple writer’s cramp. Fortunately, people with this condition are able to perform other kinds of differentiated fine-motor activities normally. If the cramp also occurs during other activities such as eating with a knife and fork, drawing, handicrafts, etc., this is called dystonic writer’s cramp.

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Dystonia at work

• Those affected often have acceptance problems

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