Objective: This study aims to describe the prevalence and sociodemographic characteristics of movement disorders seen at our Specialised Movement Disorder (MD) clinic at Abuja, Nigeria

Background: There are few studies on the spectrum of movement disorders and demographics in sub-Saharan Africa. International and local studies have been done on Parkinson’s disease and few others but there is little local data on the demographics of other movement disorders like dystonia, essential tremor and functional movement disorders. This study will help to better characterize disease patterns and generate local data for Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa.

Method: The medical records of all the patients seen in our movement disorder clinic and who were evaluated and diagnosed with a movement disorder between November 2017and February 2021 were retrieved and analysed

Results: A total of 90 patients were included in the study. Mean age was 53.3± (14.28) and 71.1% were males. The most common MD was parkinsonism(62.2%) followed by dystonia (16.7%) and essential tremor (7.8%). (figure 1)Dystonic tremor accounted for 4 out of the 90 patients (4.4%). 3 patients each had functional movement disorders and myoclonus and only 1 each of chorea and drug induced dyskinesia. The mean age of all parkinsonism presentations was 60 ± (11.5). 38 of the 56(67.9%) parkinsonism patients were male(p=0.005). All 3 patients with FMD were female while all ET patients were male. (figure 2). PD accounted for 91% of parkinsonism presentations.  (figure 3) Task specific focal dystonia (Writer’s cramp) accounted for majority (5/15) of dystonia. 4 with dystonia had the oromandibular type while 1each had cervical dystonia, blepharospasm, segmental and limb dystonia.(figure 4)

Conclusion: Parkinsonism (and particularly PD) is the most common of the MD seen. PD affects more males than females and mostly in the middle age, mean age at presentation in our study was 60 years. Dystonia was second most common MD followed by essential tremor. Essential tremor is seen only in males in our study while functional movement disorder was seen in only females.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/prevalence-of-movement-disorders-at-a-tertiary-health-care-centre-in-abuja-nigeria/