Tourette Syndrome

Do you know about pediatric tics? In fact, this is also a manifestation of epilepsy. Such tics usually occur in children aged 5-10 years old. This is also a very sudden phenomenon. Parents should pay attention to it. The symptoms of pediatric tics include squinting, blinking, and turning the neck, and it is very sudden. Parents should be able to go to the hospital to check their children in time to avoid serious consequences.

Some children show some abnormal phenomena in their daily life. For example, nodding, shaking arms, kicking feet, and baring teeth. This should attract the attention of parents. This is likely to be a manifestation of childhood tics. Childhood tics are harmful to children and must be treated scientifically in a timely manner.

1. Symptoms

It mostly occurs in boys aged 5 to 10 years old. It is a sudden, brief, repetitive, stereotyped twitching of one or two groups of muscles. It manifests as blinking, squinting, baring teeth, making funny faces, shrugging, turning the neck, nodding, twisting the body, shaking the arms or kicking the feet, twitching the lower limbs, etc. It intensifies when you are emotionally nervous, decreases when you are concentrating, and disappears during sleep. In one period, a certain group of muscles twitches mainly, manifesting as the same symptom; but in another period, another group of muscles twitches mainly, that is, the variability of symptoms. The course of the disease lasts from several months to 1 year. The frequency and severity of tics vary. Mild cases have no impact on the child's learning and living environment, while severe cases affect learning, disrupt the environment, and may even prevent the child from attending classes in the classroom.

Some people classify childhood tics as follows:

1. Acute simple (or transient) tics in children. The initial symptoms of tics are mostly simple, involuntary motor tics, and very few are simple vocal tics. Common eye and facial tics include blinking, squinting, rolling eyes, biting lips, opening mouth, nodding, shaking head, stretching neck, shrugging shoulders, etc. A few simple vocal tics present as repeated coughing, throat clearing, and humming. Symptoms may fluctuate and move from one site to another over weeks or months. The disease usually occurs before the age of 12, and the most common symptom is blinking. Symptoms last for 2 weeks to 1 year and then disappear naturally. Physical examination, including neurologic examination, is usually unremarkable.

2. Chronic simple childhood tics mostly occur before the age of 15 and are rare in adults. It manifests as one or two groups of muscle twitches without much variation. It lasts a long time and can exist for life.

3. Subacute or persistent simple or multiple tics can be seen in childhood and adolescence. In simple cases, one or two groups of muscle twitches last for more than one year and disappear naturally during puberty. For those with multiple tics and vocalizations, it is not certain whether the symptoms will disappear by puberty. This needs to be distinguished from Tourette syndrome.

4. Tourette syndrome The above classification is not complete, especially there is some confusion between type 3 and type 4. Therefore, Tourette syndrome will still be discussed separately here.

Childhood tics can manifest in many aspects, and many children now experience this condition. Many times parents don’t know what is going on, or what to do. If a child shows abnormal behavior, they should be checked in time to see what is going on. If it is childhood tics, scientific treatment should be carried out under the guidance of a doctor.