Focal dystonia in musicians, a literature review.

Background: Musician's focal dystonia (mFD) is a rare, neurological, task-specific disorder that mainly affects the upper extremity (especially the hands) and generally appears as a painless muscular incoordination that can mark the end of a musician's professional career. The present literature review intends to highlight the current understanding of musician's focal dystonia, its underlying neural mechanisms and the role of prevention and treatment in physiotherapy, psychotherapy and other fields as occupational therapy.

Purpose: The aim of the present literature review was to gain an overview of mFD in the medical, psychological and physical therapy literature and investigate what strategies for diagnosis and rehabilitation are available today.

Study design: The present article is a literature review, based on the search for full-text publications with the goal of comparing the main strategies for mFD rehabilitation and prevention presented in the literature.

Methods: This literature review compared many relevant papers and studies available in literature today for mFD epidemiology, neural mechanisms, treatment and prevention, to discuss what we know today and highlight the aspects that can still be enhanced in the future.

Results: According to our results, current literature gives a good understanding of mFD epidemiology, but further studies are needed to fully comprehend the neurological aspects and develop more rehabilitation strategies, especially in the psychological field. Our research also highlighted the need for a multidisciplinary approach that considers both physical and psychological aspects.

Conclusions: Physical rehabilitation strategies are helpful but, considering the amount of psychological aspects involved in mFD, a holistic approach should be considered and developed in the future. Finally, prevention must have a primary role in mFD treatment, raising awareness around it and, possibly, avoiding its development.