Hypotonia means decreased muscle tone. It can be a condition on its own, called benign congenital hypotonia, or it can be indicative of another problem where there is progressive loss of muscle tone, such as muscular dystrophy or cerebral palsy.
Muscle tone is the amount of tension (or resistance to movement) in muscles. Our muscle tone helps us to hold our bodies upright when we are sitting and standing. Changes in muscle tone are what enable us to move. Muscle tone also contributes to the control, speed and amount of movement we can achieve.
Muscle tone disorders include hypertonia, hypotonia, myotonia, atonia, and dystonia: Hypertonia is a condition marked by abnormally high levels of muscle tone. Hypotonia is a disorder involving an individual who has extremely low muscle tone.
Spasticity is stiff or rigid muscles. It may also be called unusual tightness or increased muscle tone. Reflexes (for example, a knee-jerk reflex) are stronger or exaggerated. The condition can interfere with walking, movement, speech, and many other activities of daily living.
When your muscles are toned, they are firm and defined. This does not mean you need to be bulky. Toned muscles can be lean and strong. Muscle definition is about showing off the muscles you have.
Some of the causes of hypotonia involve the brain. These include: Brain and spinal cord injury that may include bleeding into the brain. Serious infections of the brain and its parts like meningitis or encephalitis.
Muscle tone is assessed by feeling the muscle's resistance to passive stretch. There is a considerable degree of normal variation. To test this, flex and extend the patient's elbow, wrists, knee, and ankle joints. If decreased resistance is suspected, hold the forearm and shake the hand back and forth loosely.
These include cerebral palsy (CP), traumatic brain injury (TBI), multiple sclerosis (MS), and some metabolic and genetic disorders. People with a spinal cord injury (SCI) or who have had a stroke (CVA) may have isolated areas of increased tone.
The cerebellum fine tunes motor activity or movement, e.g. the fine movements of fingers as they perform surgery or paint a picture. It helps one maintain posture, sense of balance or equilibrium, by controlling the tone of muscles and the position of limbs.
The symptoms and treatments are similar to those for children. Just as children with hypotonia can have difficulty standing up, adults can have difficulty moving to an upright position after lying down. Adults may show increased flexibility in their joints and generally seem clumsy.
Muscular dystrophy is a group of diseases that cause progressive weakness and loss of muscle mass.
Research demonstrates that older adults can improve muscle tone, strength and function regardless of when they start. Strength exercises can improve bone density, balance, metabolism and more.
Muscle tone is your body's response to force and allows you to maintain your posture to sit and use your reflexes, like moving your arms and legs, and helps regulate the function of organs in your body. If you have poor muscle tone, your arms and legs appear droopy, similar to a rag doll.
People with spasticity describe their muscles as feeling stiff, heavy and difficult to move. When spasticity is severe it can be very difficult to bend a limb at all. A spasm is a sudden involuntary tightening or contraction of a muscle.
As a rough guide, you'll probably notice some initial changes in the first four to six weeks, but longer-term changes (what you're working toward) will often take around eight to 12 weeks.
You might not believe it from the above description, but several athletes actually have low muscle tone – Michael Phelps, Michael Jordan and many Olympic gymnasts, to name a few!
Muscle tone is regulated by spinal and supraspinal mechanisms. While spinal control depends on the interaction between muscle spindle and spinal cord along with the interneurons, supraspinal control is regulated by facilitatory and inhibitory long tracts and cerebellum.
Myositis. Myositis makes your immune system attack your muscles. Depending on which type of myositis you have, you'll have a hard time moving or using your affected muscles. There's no cure for myositis, but in most cases, treatment can put it into remission.
Diagnosed with stiff person syndrome, a rare disease that took away her ability to walk, talk, and sing, she fought an inspiring battle to regain her health. Through intense physical therapy and the use of IVIg, a repurposed drug originally developed in 1952, she was able to make a remarkable recovery.
Both isolated axial dystonia and stiff person syndrome (SPS) are rare conditions that can look as similar as to pose difficulties even to movement disorder experts familiar with both conditions.