Book Review

Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders: Diagnosis and Treatment Guidelines for the Practicing Physician

by Charles H. Adler and J. Eric Ahlskog,
474 pp, ill, Totowa, NJ, Humana Press, 2000, $99.50

Movement disorders specialists are masters of minutiae. There is nothing they like more than obsessing over whether a particular clinical phenomenon represents a tic, tremor, stereotypy, mannerism, or myoclonus. This is the modus vivendi of the movement disorder specialist. But for the rest of us, for whom the basal ganglia and associated clinical syndromes represent the “dark basements of the brain” and who do not feel all that comfortable in such dimly lit basements, this book demystifies, enlightens, and educates. The editors requested all chapter authors to imagine they were teaching during a preceptorship in their clinic, with the goal of “offering the reader full confidence in approaching patients with movement disorders.” The result is an outstanding accomplishment.

The book is organized into five sections: basic diagnostic principles, PD, other parkinsonian states, hyperkinetic movement disorders, and other movement disorders. In all, 12 chapters are devoted to PD, including excellent summaries on pathophysiology and genetics, although the focus of the book throughout is on diagnosis and management. There are excellent chapters on sleep disorders, autonomic and psychiatric complications in PD, as well as nonpharmacologic therapies for PD. Separate chapters are devoted to gait disorders and restless legs syndrome. The chapter on psychogenic movement disorders is most insightful.

Despite contributions from 35 authors, the style is uniform and the text reader-friendly, although the chapter on speech disorders is perhaps too detailed for the scope …