HEMIBALLISMUS

1 February 1939

journal article
other
Published by American Medical Association (AMA) in Archives of Neurology & Psychiatry

Vol. 41 (2) , 365-372
https://doi.org/10.1001/archneurpsyc.1939.02270140151012

Abstract

According to Oppenheim,¹the term "hemiballismus" was first employed by Kussmaul²to describe a certain type of hemichorea which Mitchell³and Charcot⁴previously had referred to as "posthemiplegic chorea," a term which never had the approval of Gowers.⁵At about the same time (1871) Hammond⁶introduced into the neurologic literature the term "athetosis." It is evident that these early writers recognized a difference between the movement patterns of tremor chorea and athetosis. In spite of the fact that these disorders of movement could be distinguished clinically, it was assumed that they represented different methods of motor expression and were the result of a diffuse lesion involving part or the whole of the basal ganglia rather than of any specific and focal lesion in these structures. Bonhoeffer⁷was one of the first to attribute chorea definitely to a subthalamic lesion, although as early as

This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit:

A CONTRIBUTION TO THE PATHOLOGY OF HEMICHOREA
Brain, 1928
Art. II.—Post-Paralytic Chorea.
The Lancet Healthy Longevity, 1874