Golfer's Yips May Be Movement Disorder

Thursday, April 14, 2005

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Yips — a condition among some golfers that describes the inability to appropriately complete a golf stroke, usually during putting or chipping and worsening with anxiety — may be a task-specific movement disorder similar to writer's cramp and musician's cramp, according to research that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology 57th Annual Meeting in Miami Beach, Fla., April 9 to 16.

For the study, researchers examined 20 male golfers, 10 with yips and 10 without. All study participants were evaluated in the laboratory using surface electromyography (EMG) testing to determine muscle activity. Participants were tested while sitting at rest, arms outstretched, and during handwriting; standing at rest, holding a putter at rest, and using their own putter to putt a total of 75 putts, varying from three, six, and eight feet. The golfers then rated the quality of their strokes, noting the number of putts made and the distance from the hole for missed putts.

"None of the golfers had any abnormal movements in the rest position, outstretched arms position, or while writing or standing holding the putter," said study co-author Charles H. Adler, M.D., Ph.D., of Mayo Clinic in Arizona.

"While only two of the golfers felt they had their yips in the lab, under all putting conditions, 50 percent of the golfers with yips had EMG evidence of co-contractions of muscles in the forearm just prior to the impact of the putter with the ball. The co-contractions were similar to those of task-specific dystonias — or movement disorders — such as writer's cramp and musician's cramp."

None of the golfers without yips had evidence co-contraction.

A trend revealed that the five golfers with yips who had co-contractions were older, had higher current and best previous handicaps, and had yips for fewer years than the other five with yips who did not have the co-contractions. There was also a trend for those five golfers with yips to make fewer putts and have a greater degree of error in missing the putts.

The study was funded by the Mayo Foundation for Medical Research and Education.

The American Academy of Neurology, an association of more than 18,000 neurologists and neuroscience professionals, is dedicated to improving patient care through education and research. A neurologist is a doctor with specialized training in diagnosing, treating and managing disorders of the brain and nervous system such as Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, and stroke. For more information, visit the American Academy of Neurology. (Link opens in new window.)

Mayo Clinic is a private group practice of medicine dedicated to providing diagnosis and treatment of patient illnesses through a systematic focus on individual patient needs. As a leading academic medical center in the Southwest, Mayo Clinic focuses on providing specialty and surgical care in more than 65 disciplines at its outpatient facility in north Scottsdale and at Mayo Clinic Hospital. The 208-licensed bed hospital is located at 56th Street and Mayo Boulevard (north of Bell Road) in northeast Phoenix, and provides inpatient care to support the medical and surgical specialties of the clinic, which is located at 134th Street and Shea Boulevard in Scottsdale.

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