Undulating tongue in Wilson′s disease

Abstract

We report an unusual occurrence of involuntary movement involving the tongue in a patient with confirmed Wilson′s disease (WD). She manifested with slow, hypophonic speech and dysphagia of 4 months duration, associated with pseudobulbar affect, apathy, drooling and dystonia of upper extremities of 1 month duration. Our patient had an uncommon tongue movement which was arrhythmic. There was no feature to suggest tremor, chorea or dystonia. It might be described as athetoid as there was a writhing quality, but of lesser amplitude. Thus, the phenomenology was uncommon in clinical practice and the surface of the tongue was seen to "ripple" like a liquid surface agitated by an object or breeze. Isolated lingual dyskinesias are rare in WD. It is important to evaluate them for WD, a potentially treatable disorder.

Keywords

• Dyskinesia
• undulating tongue
• Wilson′s disease