Posttraumatic akinetic-rigid syndrome resembling Parkinson's disease: A report on three patients

We describe three patients who developed a rapidly evolving posttraumatic a kinetic-rigid syndrome (ARS), the clinical manifestations of which were sim ilar to Parkinson's disease, including response to levodopa. Despite initia l imaging studies showing traumatic damage to the substantia nigra, the ARS appeared after a delay of 1-5 months after the injury. We stress the impor tance of magnetic resonance imaging to illustrate nigral damage in all pati ents in whom head trauma precedes an ARS.