Spasticity means you have stiff muscles caused by continuous muscle contractions. This health condition may hinder your ability to walk, move or speak.
Your muscle contraction caused stiff muscles may be apparent via these spasticity symptoms:
- clonus
- myalgia
- muscle spasms
- unusual posture
- muscle tightness
- scissoring ~ uncontrolled leg crossing
- hypertonicity ~ increased muscle tone
- abnormal angel of your shoulder, arm, wrist, finger
Spasticity may affect your speech and a longstanding muscle contraction can lead to contracture.
The basic causes of spasticity is some sort of brain damage or spinal nerve damage in areas that control voluntary movement. This muscle contraction caused stiff muscles is often associated with another health conditions, for instance:
- stroke
- cerebral palsy
- demyelination
- cerebral hypoxia
- spinal cord injury
- multiple sclerosis
- transverse myelitis
- lipid storage disease
- neurodegenerative disease
- brain trauma, severe head injury
- adrenoleukodystrophy, ALS, phenylketonuria, other metabolic diseases
Spasticity treatment depends on the extent of your muscle contraction caused symptoms. Exercises consisting of stretching, range of motion and strengthening of your stiff muscles may be all that’s necessary.
There are muscle relaxants and other drugs used to treat spasticity as well, including baclofen, tizanidine, cyclobenzaprine and benzodiazepines. In some cases, botox injections and medical marijuana may be a successful form of stiff muscle treatment.
In extreme cases of spasticity, surgical treatment may be proposed to release a tendon or sever a nerve muscle pathway that’s involved in causing your muscle contraction.