Treatment of Tourette syndrome
Tourette syndrome (also Tourette's syndrome or TS) is an inherited neuropsychiatric disorder with onset in childhood, characterized by the presence of motor and phonic tics. Treatment of Tourette syndrome has the goal of managing symptoms to achieve optimum functioning, rather than eliminating symptoms; not all persons with Tourette's require treatment, and there is no cure or universally effective medication. Explanation and reassurance alone are often sufficient treatment; education is an important part of any treatment plan.
History of Tourette syndrome
The eponym was bestowed by Jean-Martin Charcot (1825–93) on behalf of his resident, Georges Albert Édouard Brutus Gilles de la Tourette (1859–1904), a French physician and neurologist, who published an account of nine patients with Tourette's in 1885. The possibility that movement disorders, including Tourette syndrome, might have an organic origin was raised when an encephalitis epidemic from 1918–1926 led to a subsequent epidemic of tic disorders. Research in 1972 advanced the argument that Tourette's is a neurological, rather than psychological, disorder; since the 1990s, a more neutral view of Tourette's has emerged, in which biological vulnerability and adverse environmental events are seen to interact.