Rhythmic Movement Disorder - Signs and Symptoms - Motor Symptoms

Motor Symptoms

Symptoms of Rhythmic Movement Disorder vary, but most sufferers share common large muscle movement patterns. Many sufferers show consistent symptoms including:

• body rocking, where the whole body is moved while on the hands and knees.
• head banging, where the head is forcibly moved in a back and forth direction.
• head rolling, where the head is moved laterally while in a supine position.

Other less common muscle movements include:

• body rolling, where the whole body is moved laterally while in a supine position.
• leg rolling, where one or both legs are moved laterally.
• leg banging, where one or both legs are moved in a back and forth direction.
• a combination of the aforementioned symptoms

The majority of sufferers have symptoms that involve the head, and the most common symptom is head banging. Usually, the head strikes a pillow or mattress near the frontal-parietal region. There is little cause for alarm at the movements as injury or brain damage as a result of the movements is rare. Some infants with diagnosed Costello Syndrome have been observed to have unique RMD episodes affecting the tongue and other facial muscles, which is an uncommonly affected area. Episodes usually last less than fifteen minutes and produce movements that vary from 0.5 to 2 Hz. Muscle movements during REM sleep are often twitches and occur simultaneously with normal sleep. The position of the body during sleep may determine which motor symptom is displayed. For example, Anderson et al. reported that one individual showed entire body rolling movements while sleeping on his side while displaying head rolling movements when sleeping supine.