Hand dystonia

Other names: Focal hand dystonia / Writer’s cramp / Musician’s cramp / Musician’s dystonia

Type: Focal

Focal hand dystonia is a neurological movement disorder characterised by continuous or intermittent muscle contractions which cause abnormal, often painful, repetitive movements in the hand/s or arm/s.

When focal hand dystonia affects writing, causing it to become painful and written work less legible, it is known as Writer’s Cramp.

There are two types:

• Simple writer’s cramp is more common and occurs when muscle strain causes the writer to press down too hard on the paper and leads to focal hand dystonia symptoms.
• Dystonic writer’s cramp is rarer. In this case, the involuntary movements and muscle cramps also affect people during non-writing tasks such as using a knife and fork or applying make-up.

Focal hand dystonia in musicians is often called musician’s cramp or musician’s dystonia. Sometimes the effects are quite subtle - but they often prevent playing to a professional standard. It usually affects the body part/area which performs the most complex movement patterns, so the part affected depends more upon the instrument played, rather than hand dominance.

Focal hand dystonia should be diagnosed and treated by a neurologist specialising in movement disorders.