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Joe and Charlie, I stand corrected, and rightly so. I am long enough in the tooth to know better than to throw out vague, unsubstantiated comments on matters of importance. My apologies to anyone I may have confused. But if I may be allowed one 'quibble' I believe Joe's statement in regard to movement and dystonia (see below), and obviously intended to simplify and explain the distinction between dystonia and dyskinesia, unfortunately only confuses the issue further. I believe the correct distinction between the two (in terms of movement) is that with dyskinesia each movement is of short duration, is repeated frequently and often goes in many directions whilst with dystonia any movement is sustained throughout the episode and goes in the same direction throughout the episode. If I can use the foot dystonia familiar to many as an example. The toes curl inward, and the foot arches upward drawing the toes towards the heel. This movement of toes towards heel is distinctly a movement and only stops because of the physical inability of the foot to bend enough. However the pull of the muscles continues in the same direction for the duration of the episode. Likewise in the case of the toe curling. In the case of the leg dystonia I described in my earlier post, the twisting movement of the leg is always clockwise and is sustained throughout the entire episode. For the record this activity has been observed by the neurologist who supervised both my pallidotomy and my recent DBS. He is a movement specialist and has no doubt whatsoever that the activity is dystonia. You may quibble in turn <grin> that the movements involved in the foot dystonia are small and insignificant (I don't believe they are - but that argument could be raised) but in no way could the same argument be made about a twisting motion that moves a foot through 90 degrees and tries to do the same to the hip joint. Dennis > But > careful reading will reassure you that movement is *not* a major > feature of dystonia. No doubt some quibblers may object, but I think > it's more productive to keep "dystonia" distinct from "dyskinesia". > Dystonia has other causes than only PD, but in PD dyskinesia, the > difference will help people understand what you're talking about.