blepharospasm
Sign in to saveAlso known as blepharospasm (disorder), BLEPHAROSPASM, BENIGN ESSENTIAL
Blepharospasm is a neurological disorder characterized by intermittent, involuntary spasms and contractions of the orbicularis oculi (eyelid) muscles around both eyes. These result in abnormal twitching or blinking, and in the extreme, sustained eyelid closure resulting in functional blindness.
Key facts
- Medical condition (new).name
- Blepharospasm
- Medical condition (new).synonyms
- Eye dystonia, Eye twitching, Eye spasm
- Medical condition (new).field
- Neurology, ophthalmology
via Wikipedia infobox
Research
2,715 papers- Blepharospasm 40 years later.Movement disorders : official journal of the Movement Disorder Society · 2017
- Essential blepharospasm.Seminars in ophthalmology · 2010
- Blepharospasm management in Schwartz-Jampel syndrome: A systematic review.European journal of ophthalmology · 2025
- Blepharospasm and Hemifacial Spasm.International ophthalmology clinics · 2018
- Blepharospasm: recent advances.Neurology · 2002
via PubMed
Wikidata facts
- Subclass of
- disease
- Image
- Gray379.png
Show 8 more facts
- health specialty
- neurology
- ICPC 2 ID
- N99
- drug or therapy used for treatment
- cyproheptadine
- exact match
- purl.obolibrary.org/obo/HP_0000643
- NCI Thesaurus ID
- C118723
- ICD-9-CM
- 333.81
- genetic association
- DRD5
- on focus list of Wikimedia project
- WikiProject Medicine
Sources (3)
via Wikidata · CC0
~9 min read
Encyclopedic overview
9 sectionsContents
- Epidemiology
- Signs and symptoms
- Causes
- Diagnosis
- Treatment
- Research
- Multimedia
- References
- External links
Blepharospasm is a neurological disorder characterized by intermittent, involuntary spasms and contractions of the orbicularis oculi (eyelid) muscles around both eyes. These result in abnormal twitching or blinking, and in the extreme, sustained eyelid closure resulting in functional blindness.
The word blepharospasm is derived from the Greek: βλέφαρον / blepharon, eyelid, and σπασμός / spasmos, spasm, an uncontrolled muscle contraction. The condition should be distinguished from the more common, and milder, involuntary quivering of an eyelid, known as myokymia or fasciculation.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “blepharospasm” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.