General management of cerebellar disorders: An overview

Abstract

Cerebellar disorders primarily effect motor functions and can lead to significant and serious restrictions in activities of daily living. Possibilities for medical interventions are rare and limited to specific diseases and symptoms. Furthermore, motor rehabilitation for patients suffering from cerebellar damage is challenging, since the cerebellum is known to play an important role for the execution as well as for the (re)learning of precise movements. This chapter reviews the state of the art in medical intervention and rehabilitation, focusing on presenting new results on motor rehabilitation in cerebellar disease. Recent studies indicate that even in the case of degenerative cerebellar diseases intensive and continuous motor training can reduce Ataxia symptoms and increase motor performance relevant to daily living. In addition, current studies in the area of motor learning - in combination with modern imaging techniques - in cerebellar disease are described. These results offer promising perspectives for a deeper understanding of remaining motor learning capacities in cerebellar disease, and thus might help in the future to optimize motor rehabilitation for individual patients.