What are the symptoms of Tourette syndrome?
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Symptoms of Tourette syndrome can be fairly mild or quite severe. People with Tourette syndrome may have simple muscle tics, like repeatedly blinking or jerking their heads, or more complex tics, like hitting or flapping their arms. Vocal tics are common, too. Simple vocal tics like yelling or grunting can eventually lead to more complex tics like repeating words and involuntary swearing. Most people with Tourette are unable to control the impulse to do a tic. Giving into a tic, however, only briefly relieves their tension.
Symptoms of Tourette syndrome can be fairly mild or quite severe. People with Tourette syndrome may have simple muscle tics, like repeatedly blinking or jerking their heads, or more complex tics, like hitting or flapping their arms. Vocal tics are... More -
Donna Hill Howes answered:The most prominent symptoms of Tourette syndrome (TS) are tics. Tics can be classified as either simple or complex. Simple motor tics are sudden, brief, repetitive movements that involve a limited number of muscle groups. Some of the more common simple tics include eye blinking and other eye movements, facial grimacing, shoulder shrugging, and head or shoulder jerking. Simple vocalizations might include repetitive throat-clearing, sniffing, or grunting sounds. Complex tics are distinct, coordinated patterns of movements involving several muscle groups. Complex motor tics might include facial grimacing combined with a head twist and a shoulder shrug. Other complex motor tics may actually appear purposeful, including sniffing or touching objects, hopping, jumping, bending, or twisting. Complex vocal tics include words or phrases. Perhaps the most dramatic and disabling tics include motor movements that result in self-harm, such as punching oneself in the face or vocal tics including coprolalia (uttering socially inappropriate words such as swearing) or echolalia (repeating the words or phrases of others). However, coprolalia is only present in a small number (10 to 15 percent) of individuals with TS. Some tics are preceded by an urge or sensation in the affected muscle group, commonly called a premonitory urge. Some with TS will describe a need to complete a tic in a certain way or a certain number of times in order to relieve the urge or decrease the sensation.
Tics are often worse with excitement or anxiety and better during calm, focused activities. Certain physical experiences can trigger or worsen tics -- for example, tight collars may trigger neck tics, or hearing another person sniff or throat-clear may trigger similar sounds. Tics do not go away during sleep but are often significantly diminished.
This information is based on source information from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.The most prominent symptoms of Tourette syndrome (TS) are tics. Tics can be classified as either simple or complex. Simple motor tics are sudden, brief, repetitive movements that involve a limited number of muscle groups. Some of the more... More -
The primary characteristics associated with Tourette's syndrome (TS) are multiple motor tics and one or more vocal tics. Motor and vocal tics may develop at about the same time or predominate at different times during the course of the disorder.
Early symptoms: The early symptoms of TS are usually noticed first in childhood, with the average onset between the ages of seven and ten years. Mild motor tics and vocal tics may be present.
Motor tics: Initially, individuals with TS develop motor tics that are sudden, rapid, recurring, and involuntary muscle movements. Motor tics cause facial grimacing, excessive blinking, and rapid, recurrent movement of the arms, legs, or other areas. Simple motor tics may also include repeated neck stretching, head jerking, or shoulder shrugging. Less commonly, motor tics are more coordinated, having distinct movements involving several muscle groups, such as repetitive squatting, skipping, or hopping. These tics, referred to as complex motor tics, may also include repetitive touching of others, deep knee bending, jumping, smelling of objects, hand gesturing, head shaking, leg kicking, or turning in a circle. In addition to affecting the head and facial area, motor tics also affect other parts of the body, such as the shoulders, torso, arms, and legs. The anatomical locations of motor tics may change over time. Rarely, motor tics evolve to include behaviors that may result in self-injury, such as excessive scratching and lip biting.
Vocal tics: Vocal tics are sudden, involuntary, recurrent, often relatively loud vocalizations. Vocal tics usually begin as single, simple sounds that may eventually progress to involve more complex phrases and vocalizations. For example, individuals with TS may initially develop simple vocal tics including grunting, throat clearing, sighing, barking, hissing, sniffing, tongue clicking, or snorting. Complex vocal tics may involve repeating certain phrases or words out of context, one's own words or sounds (palilalia), or the last words or phrases spoken by others (echolalia). Rarely, there may be involuntary, explosive cursing or compulsive utterance of obscene words or phrases (coprolalia).
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The primary characteristics associated with Tourette's syndrome (TS) are multiple motor tics and one or more vocal tics. Motor and vocal tics may develop at about the same time or predominate at different times during the course of the disorder.... More
