Understanding neurological disorders

Movement disorders is a term referring to a group of neurological conditions associated with increased movements or reduced or slow movements. The movements may be voluntary or involuntary.¹⁰ Broadly, movement disorders can be split into those where the affected person moves too much (e.g., Huntington’s disease), and those where the affected person moves too little (e.g., Parkinson’s disease or multiple system atrophy).¹⁰

Huntington’s disease is an inherited, progressive brain disease that usually emerges during middle age.¹¹ It causes involuntary jerky movements of the body, as well as problems with thinking and memory, and changes in behaviour and personality.¹¹ Parkinson’s disease is a progressive disease that causes tremor, slowness of movement, stiffness, and sometimes balance problems, as well as symptoms that are not related to movement (e.g. mental health issues and problems with sleep and memory).¹² Multiple system atrophy has similar movement symptoms to Parkinson’s disease, but it is rarer, progresses more rapidly, is harder to diagnose, and has fewer treatment options.¹³

Movement disorders are a source of stigma and can interfere with daily life. People with a progressive brain disease can ultimately become completely dependent on a caregiver.^1,11-12

Gain a deeper understanding of Parkinson's disease here.

Pain is an unpleasant sensation associated with actual or potential tissue damage.¹⁴ Often the cause of the pain is obvious, occurring after bruising or breaking a bone but sometimes the source of the pain is unseen, for example a slipped disc in your back.¹⁴ Different people experience pain in different ways, and this can be influenced by psychological, biological and social factors.¹⁴

Short-term pain is called Acute Pain and an example would be a sprained ankle. Acute pain can often be the body’s way of warning us that something is wrong. Long-term pain is called Persistent or Chronic Pain and arthritis is an example.¹⁴ Chronic pain often has no useful purpose and the pain messages from the warning system linked to long-term conditions like arthritis or back pain are not always needed, but sometimes the messages get confused and the brain cannot understand the signals properly.¹⁴ Over time they can affect what we do and have a negative impact on our ability to work and our sleep patterns.¹⁴

Headache is pain that occurs in the head. Headaches are extremely common, and can be ‘primary’, such as migraine, tension-type headache and cluster headache, or ‘secondary’, meaning that they are caused by – or occur secondarily to – other conditions, the most common of which is medication-overuse headache.¹⁵ Migraine is a complex condition that usually features a severe headache often accompanied by other symptoms including nausea, disturbed vision and an increased sensitivity to light and sound.¹⁶ The symptoms vary across individuals and can differ in length and frequency but migraine can have a huge impact on the lives of sufferers including family, work and social life.¹⁶ Tension-type headaches are the most common type of headache in the UK whilst cluster headache is a rare headache disorder associated with overwhelming pain.¹⁵

Gain a deeper understanding of migraine here.