Fokale Dystonie bei Musikern und Sportlern - Disziplinübergreifende Erklärungsansätze, theoriebasierte Interventionen

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Eckart Altenmüller; Professor Dr. Markus Raab
• Subject Area: Clinical Neurology; Neurosurgery and Neuroradiology
• Term: from 2010 to 2014
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 178011069

Action induced focal dystonias such as musician’s cramp or golfer’s cramp (yips) are characterized by task specific, mostly painless, involuntary muscle contractions, resulting in uncontrolled movements and abnormal postures (cramps) of a single body part. In Germany, around 80.000 people suffer from focal dystonia. Affected professional musicians and competitive athletes often experience occupational disability. Despite the striking commonalities in amount of training, situational demands, and psychological profiles between musicians and golfers, there has been no interdisciplinary investigation of neurological, psychosocial, or sensorimotor factors influencing focal dystonias. The present transdisciplinary research cooperation between the task force (TF) from the Hannover University of Music and Drama and the German Sport University Cologne aims at integrating and extending the discipline specific knowledge. Moreover, the cooperation focuses on the investigation of the transfer effects of discipline specific treatments for focal dystonias in music and sports. Based on the development of a psychological-, physiological-, and kinematical-based diagnostic tool, we develop, test, and evaluate task-specific interventions.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants