Mirror Movements in Patients With the Klippel-Feil Syndrome

THE SYNDROME of mirror movements is a congenital disorder of motor control in which voluntary movements initiated in one arm or leg are copied by the other. Usually, children with this syndrome have no other evidence of neurologic disease and improve as they grow older, although some degree of synkinesia may persist. Although mirror movements may be transmitted as an isolated autosomal dominant disorder, more often it is reported in association with congenital syndromes affecting other organ systems. The Klippel-Feil syndrome is characterized by a congenital failure of cervical segmentation resulting in apparent fusion of two or more cervical vertebrae.¹In 1932 Bauman²described four children with these osseous anomalies who also had mirror movements. Four years later Avery and Rentfro³published the only autopsy observations on a case with both disorders. The present report describes the autopsy findings in a second such case with certain