Title: What is Ataxia?<br/>Author: Danya Khoujah<br/><a href='http://umem.org/profiles/faculty/739/'>[Click to email author]</a><hr/><p> Ataxia is an important clinical sign of cerebellar pathology, but how is it actually described?</p> <p> · Stance ataxia: inability to stand with feet together for more than 30 seconds</p> <p> · Gait ataxia</p> <p> · Sensory ataxia: the first 2 elements, in addition to a positive Romberg sign</p> <p> · Truncal ataxia: oscillation of body while sitting or standing</p> <p> · Limb ataxia: functional impairment in performing actions such as writing or buttoning and improves with slowing down the movement</p> <p> · Dysdiadokinesia: impairment of rapidly alternating movement</p> <p> · Intention tremor: tested by finger-to-nose and heel-to-shin.</p> <p> · Dysmetria: pastpointing or undershooting on finger-chasing or shin-tap.</p> <p> · Dysarthria: irregular and slow speech with unnecessary hesitation</p> <p> · Nystagmus and other ocular disturbances, such as ocular flutter and opsoclonus.</p> <p> The first 3 are present in both cerebellar pathology and loss of proprioceptive input, the rest are usually due to cerebellar pathology or ataxic syndrome.</p> <fieldset><legend>References</legend>
<p class="p1"> Ashizawa T and Xia G. Ataxia. Continuum 2016;22(4):1208-1226</p> </fieldset>