Rehabilitation of a Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury Caused by Tourette’s Syndrome: A Case Report

Aim: This report illustrates how a complex movement disorder can lead to debilitating injury, how a post-acute rehabilitation course can improve functional outcomes in this injury, and how to prevent future events from occurring.

Case Presentation: This report describes the case of a 23 year-old female with a diagnosis of Tourette’s syndrome and severe cervical spine motor tics. Following one of her tics, she experienced sudden left sided weakness and numbness. Following surgical decompression for cervical stenosis, the patient was transferred to an acute rehabilitation facility where she was able to make significant functional gains to reduce caregiver burden at discharge.

Discussion: Severe motor tics associated with Tourette’s syndrome are a rare cause of cervical myelopathy. Additionally, the rehabilitation setting may be an opportune place to implement therapeutic interventions (pharmacological, behavioral) to prevent these types of events.

Conclusion: We report a case of a successful outcome following a rehabilitation course of an individual with cervical myelopathy caused by Tourette’s syndrome.