There are several other less common chronic myopathies in which external ophthalmoplegia is associated with involvement of other muscles or organs, namely, the congenital ophthalmoplegia of the Goldenhar-Gorlin syndrome (see Aleksic et al); the Kearns-Sayre syndrome (retinitis pigmentosa, heart block, short stature, generalized weakness, and ovarian hypoplasia); other congenital myotubular and mitochondrial myopathies; and nuclear ophthalmoplegia with bifacial weakness (Möbius syndrome). Rarely, eye muscle weakness may occur at a late stage in a few other dystrophies. Ptosis has a wider diagnostic range than ophthalmoplegia that includes myotonic dystrophy. Although not a regular feature of the disease, ophthalmoparesis can occur in the Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome.
Ptosis is variable in all of these conditions. When present in infantile myopathic disease, it is frequently a marker of the congenital myasthenic syndromes. The periorbital edema of Trichinosis is a rare cause, associated also with periorbital edema.
Bifacial palsy presenting as an inability to smile, to expose the teeth, and to close the eyes Varying degrees of bifacial weakness are observed in myasthenia gravis, usually conjoined with ptosis and ocular palsies. On occasion, weakness of facial muscles may be combined with myasthenic weakness of the masseters and other bulbar muscles without involvement of ocular muscles. Facial weakness and ptosis are features of myotonic dystrophy. More severe or complete facial palsy occurs in facioscapulohumeral dystrophy, sometimes presenting several years before weakness of the shoulder girdle muscles. Bifacial weakness is also a feature of certain congenital myopathies (centronuclear, nemaline), Kennedy type of degenerative bulbospinal motor neuron disease, and the Möbius syndrome of the absence of the facial nuclei (in combination with abducens palsies).
Advanced scleroderma, Parkinson disease, or a pseudobulbar state can immobilize the face to the point of simulating myopathic or neuropathic paralysis, but always in a context that makes the cause obvious.
Bulbar (oropharyngeal) palsy presenting as dysphonia, dysarthria, and dysphagia with or without weakness of jaw or facial muscles Myasthenia gravis is the most frequent cause of this syndrome and must also be considered whenever a patient presents with the solitary finding of a hanging jaw or fatigue of the jaw while eating or talking; usually, however, ptosis and ocular palsies are conjoined. Dysphagia and dysphonia may be early and prominent signs of polymyositis, as well as inclusion body myositis (IBM), and may appear in patients with myotonic dystrophy, because of upper esophageal atonia.
Combinations of these palsies are not typically of muscular or neuromuscular origin but instead are observed as an acute syndrome in botulism, in brainstem stroke, and at the outset of Guillain-Barré syndrome. Diphtheria and bulbar poliomyelitis are now rare diseases that may present in this way. Progressive bulbar palsy (motor neuron disease) may be the basis of this syndrome (see Chap. 38); the last of these diagnoses is most obvious when the tongue is withered and twitching. Syringobulbia, basilar invagination of the skull, and certain types of Chiari malformation may reproduce some of the findings of bulbar palsy by involving the lower cranial nerves. Rare cases of progressive aphonia include the X-linked Kennedy syndrome of bulbospinal atrophy.