Myoclonus is an irregular and involuntary twitching of a particular body muscle or a group of different muscles.1 It indicates a medical sign and in most of the cases, it does not act as any diagnosis of a problem. Myoclonic jerks and twitches, along with seizure mainly take place because of sudden muscular contractions i.e. positive myoclonus and sudden muscular relaxations referred as negative myoclonus.
Especially a large number of individuals experience hypnic jerks, which take place when an individual falls asleep. Almost every individual may experience myoclonic jerk at some point of the time. However, when these jerks take place persistently and widespread, they indicate neurological disorders. Jerks in the case of myoclonus or myoclonic jerks take place either alone or by following a particular sequence. Even the jerks take place based on a particular pattern or without any specific pattern.
What Is The Future Of Myoclonus Patients After Treatment?
Effects of sleep myoclonus and myoclonus vary depending on the specific form and overall health of a person. In severe case of the problem, movement of an individual distorts extremely and puts limit in the regular function, like talking, eating and walking. However, the positive thing in this case future related to myoclonus and its variants are usually neutral, as the disease involves no or few difficulties.2
One of the common categories of myoclonus is sleep myoclonus, which takes place during the initial phases when a person sleeps, particular when he/she drops off to sleep and familiar examples, like for instance the hypnic jerk. A few of the sleep myoclonus forms are sensitive towards the stimuli and others rarely show any trouble or require any treatment. If your myoclonus symptom is complicated, and you experience sleeping disorders of disturbing type, including the restless leg syndrome, you have to undergo with medical treatment immediately.
Sleep-based Myoclonus seizure involves jolts and jumps experienced by an individual in his or her single extremity or in the entire body. The feeling in this case is analogies to experiencing a mild form of electric shock and an uncontrolled jolt. In some cases, the jerk and twitch of a person’s body becomes so severe that it causes any small child to fall.
The complete cure of myoclonus depends entirely upon the underlying condition due to which it has been developed. If the underlying condition is curable through medications or surgery, the myoclonus can be permanently cured. In many neurological disorders, the condition cannot be cured rather the progression of the disease is slowed and the symptoms are managed. In those conditions, myoclonus cannot be cured. For instance, myoclonus-dystopia syndrome, a cause of myoclonus, cannot be cured and the treatment is mainly aimed to lessen the symptoms. In most of the cases, a single medicine or a single treatment is not quite effective and the doctors have to implement a combinatorial treatment strategy to provide optimum benefits to the patients. Most causes of myoclonus such as physiological or essential myoclonus or myoclonus caused due to infection or medications or toxin accumulation may be cured once the underlying cause ceases to exist.
Myoclonus is a symptom of an underlying condition. The underlying condition may be a disease or any circumstance leading to the damage of the nervous system such as accumulation of toxins or side effects of the drugs. The latter causes of myoclonus can be treated by eliminating the toxins from the body or by discontinuing the drug. However, in a certain debilitating condition which is of irreversible nature, myoclonus cannot be completely eliminated rather it can only be managed. In conditions where the myoclonus severely affects the quality of life, doctors focus on managing only the myoclonus. For this, they administer the drugs used in other neurological conditions.
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