Tics

The Involuntary Behavior

They are movements of some body parts, brief, repetitive, involuntary, and without apparent purpose. They are frequent and, generally, passengers.

Tics are movements of some parts of the body (motor tics) or sounds (phonatory tics) that are brief and repetitive (but not rhythmic), involuntary (but can partially reproduce and control them), abrupt (sometimes preceded by a premonitory impulse), and with no apparent purpose.

They appear mostly between 5 and 10 years of age, although they sometimes start earlier. Between 4 and 24% of boys have tics and are more common in boys than girls at some point in their lives. In some cases, other family members have had the same problem.

What are the symptoms?

The characteristics of tics can be very varied, both in their duration and in their complexity. The most common ones are:

• Simple motor tick: occurs only in one group of muscles. These are the ticks with flickers, winks, grimaces, movements of the nose, mouth, or eyes, lifting shoulders…
• Complex motor tic: occurs in more than one group of muscles. These are the ticks of touching objects, jumping, walking the steps again, touching yourself…