ATHETOSIS (Gr. seers, " without

See also:

• PLACE (through Fr. from Lat. platea, street; Gr. IrAar6s, wide)

place ")  , the medical term applied to certain slow, purposeless, deliberate movements of the hands and feet . The fingers are separately flexed and extended, abducted and adducted in an entirely irregular way . The hands as a whole are also moved, and the arms, toes and feet may be affected . The condition is usually due to some lesion of the brain which has caused hemiplegia, and is especially common in childhood . It is occasionally congenital (so called), and is then due to some injury of the brain during birth . It is more usually associated with hemiplegia, in which condition there is first of all complete voluntary immobility of the parts affected: but later, as there is a return of a certain amount of power over the limbs affected, the slow rhythmic movements of athetosis are first noticed . This never develops, however, where there is no recovery of voluntary power . Its distribution is thus nearly always hemiplegic, and it is often associated with more or less mental impairment . The movements may or may not continue during sleep . They cannot be arrested for more than a moment by will power, and are aggravated by voluntary movements . The prognosis is unsatisfactory, as the condition usually continues unchanged for years, though improvement occasionally occurs in slight cases, or even complete recovery .