Tourettes is a neurological disorder that causes a person to have tics—involuntary movements, thoughts, or words. It was first recognized by French physician Jean Marc Gaspard Itard in 1825, but it was not until 1885 that French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot coined the term “Tourettes syndrome” after his resident assistant Georges Gilles de la Tourette published a study of nine persons with convulsive disorders.To be diagnosed with Tourettes a person must suffer from at least two movement disorders and a verbal one for over a year. The type a movements a person may suffer varies widely, from eye blinking to leg kicking. A person normally develops Tourettes sometime during childhood Medication is rarely prescribed for the control of Tourettes. Most treatments focus on education and management of the most disrupting aspects of the syndrome. As a person with Tourettes reaches adulthood, the disorder may lessen. The average age when the condition is most severe is between eight and twelve years of age. While there is no test for Tourette’s syndrome, medical professionals have devised standards that assist physicians in diagnosis of the disorder. The following are the symptoms of Tourettes:
