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Transient dystonic toe-walking: differentiation from cerebral palsy and a rare explanation for some unexplained cases of idiopathic toe-walking
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 January 2006
Abstract
We report on seven children (five males, two females) who presented with marked, often asymmetrical, toe-walking from onset of independent walking, associated with abnormal foot postures and increased tone at the ankles with characteristics of dystonia. Most of the children had presented with unusual pre-walking locomotion and a mild delay in independent walking. They did not fit into the usual categories of ‘habitual’ toe-walking or congenital short tendo calcaneus but nor did they have the clinical signs of spastic diplegia or of a peripheral neuromuscular disease. Normalization occurred progressively in the second to fourth years of life. The children were re-examined several years later (1 to 11y) and were normal. We believe that their persistent toe-walking corresponded to a variant of ‘transient focal dystonia of infancy’. Knowledge of its existence may justify a period of observation without special investigations, surgery, or casting.
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- 2006 Mac Keith Press
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