Psychiatric Treatment and Management of Psychiatric Comorbidities of Movement Disorders

Abstract

Pediatric movement disorders may present with psychiatric symptoms at many points during the course of the disease. For the relatively common pediatric movement disorder, Tourette syndrome, psychiatric comorbidities are well-described and treatment is well-studied. Treating these comorbidities may be more effective than treating the movements themselves. For more uncommon movement disorders, such as juvenile-onset Huntington disease, treatment of psychiatric comorbidities is not well-characterized, and best practice recommendations are not available. For the least common movement disorders, such as childhood neurodegeneration with brain iron accumulation, psychiatric features may be nonspecific, so that underlying diagnosis may be apparent only after recognition of other symptoms. However, psychiatric medication, psychotherapy, and psychosocial support for these disorders may prove helpful to many children and adolescents.