Muscle ‘Contractures’ and the ‘Stiff-man’ Syndrome

The aetiology of the clinical stiff-man syndrome is likely to be heterogeneous, but until we have more precise methods of identifying an individual cause the need will continue for this rather flippant appellation in patients whose condition cannot be described in any other way. It is also important because patients may otherwise become labelled as suffering from a psychiatric disorder and may even be falsely accused of abusing diazepam (Westblom, 1978). The reverse is also true, and patients may masquerade as stiff men or women (Price and Allott, 1958; Casati and Rossi, 1969).

The endocrine dimension remains and should be tested for carefully, particularly in patients with predominantly lower-limb rigidity whose spasms are a relatively minor aspect of their clinical syndrome. Clearly those patients described by George et al (1984) and Slater (1960) as suffering from the stiff-man syndrome need to be reclassified as examples of the hormonal stiff muscle syndrome, and there may be others so misclassified. An endocrine aetiology may easily be missed in a patient with relatively minor muscle stiffness, pain and cramps, such as the man described by Yunus et al (1981) whose myalgia, ‘arthralgia’ and muscle tenderness vanished completely within four days of taking physiological replacement doses of cortisone acetate as treatment for his hypopituitarism.

The rarity of the stiff-man syndrome makes prospective studies of its aetiology and treatment impossible, yet the dramatic and devastating nature of the syndrome suggests that such cases may be extreme examples of a much more common condition. On the other hand, it is possible to argue that once the psychiatric, the overtly neurological and the endocrine cases are omitted we are left with nothing. However, this is just where Moersch and Woltman came in; they could not explain 14 of their cases. Despite modern technology, despite refinements of diagnosis and despite the increasing recognition of the stiff-man syndrome as a heterogeneous condition, there still remains—albeit very rarely—a cohort of patients with progressive proximal muscular stiffness and spasms who defy proper scientific explanation, but who are likely to suffer from a chronic myelitis which destroys normal feedback mechanisms between muscle spindles and the spinal cord. Experience over the last 30 years has served at least to alert people to the psychiatric possibilities, to remove any question of primary muscle or tendon disease and to point to the usefulness of diazepam. With hope, this chapter provides an endocrine dimension which offers an actual cure and therefore deserves to be more widely recognized.