Speech-induced primary lingual dystonia: a rare focal dystonia

Abstract

Lingual dystonia, a type of focal dystonia that may be primary or secondary, is related to brain damage, neuroleptic use, neurodegenerative, metabolic, and neurodevelopmental disorders, varicella infection, and so on. However, primary lingual dystonia induced by speaking is a rare type of focal dystonia that is usually idiopathic in origin and is characterized by increased tonus of the tongue, which causes protrusion only during speaking. This report describes a 55-year-old male patient with lingual dystonia during speech. One interesting clinical feature of this case was that the speech disturbance improved while the patient vocalized a praise-like hymn in a manner that resembled singing.

Botulinum Toxin in the Treatment of Lingual Dystonia Induced by Speaking

“…One important feature of cases with lingual dystonia is responsiveness to sensory tricks [1, 2, 4, 5], for example, how chewing gum effectively relieved symptoms in our patient. However, this sensory trick only lasted for a few weeks, after which she experienced a gradual return of her symptoms.…”

“…The literature includes 6 cases (7 including our patient) of primary lingual dystonia induced by speaking [1 2 3 4 5 6]. …”

“…Only 1 case [5] of botulinum toxin injection for primary lingual dystonia induced by speaking has been reported, but this treatment has limited effectiveness.…”

“…Primary lingual dystonia is a rare condition, especially when it is only induced by speaking [1 2 3 4 5 6]. There are a few papers in the literature reporting on experience with botulinum toxin for lingual dystonia [7 8 9 10 11].…”

Familial case of speech‐induced tongue‐protrusion dystonia

“…1 Primary lingual dystonia induced by speaking is usually idiopathic in origin and is characterized by increased tonus of the tongue, which causes protrusion only during speaking. 2 We present a familial form of dystonia in 2 siblings, in which speech-induced primary lingual dystonia remained the only clinical feature for many years until it slowly progressed to multifocal dystonia. Potential genetic susceptibility factors for primary focal dystonia were investigated.…”