妥瑞症的現況

The Current Status of Tourette syndrome

妥瑞症（Tourette syndrome）是兒童時期開始出現抽動症狀的慢性異常。這些抽動可能一天數次，甚至一分鐘內數十次，造成許多學子和家庭的困擾。影響他們日常生活、社交和學習。而在國內仍有許多的妥瑞症患者沒有被早期診斷並轉介，使得常被周遭的人誤解，還有因為這些抽動行為而被老師處罰的情形。本文將簡略概述妥瑞症的症狀、病因、診斷分類、癒後，治療以及一些相關新知。期望能讓更多的人了解這個疾病，並給予更多的關懷。

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a chronic tic disorder that occurs in childhood. Children with TS may have multiple tic incidents during a day, even many times per minute. These movements influence sufferers' ability to perform daily activities and school performance and present barriers to normal interaction with others. Awareness of TS is not great in Taiwan, and thus many pediatric patients fail to obtain an early diagnosis and are mistreated or punished due to disorder-related behaviors. In this paper, we briefly introduce TS symptoms, etiology, diagnosis, classification, prognosis, treatments, and recent findings about this syndrome. It is hoped that through this report more people can understand the disease and provide more assistance to individuals with TS.