On Saturday 28 Sep 2002 6:29 pm, Rayna Lamb wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 28, 2002 at 11:43:04AM -0400, BG Greer, PhD wrote:
>
>     I have seen this in other areas, such as mental retardation.
> Terms gradually get into everyday parlance, become stigmatizing,
> and so folks search and come up with a new term. Could this be
> happening with "spastic vs. dystonia"? Just a rhetorical question.
>
> I don't know if this particular piece of terminology is used
> elsewhere, but one of the physios I saw after my last bad fall,
> referred to my spasticity as `hypertonic'.  Hadn't heard it before
> - and the opposite is of course `hypotonic'.  I think, oddly
> enough, that I prefer spasticity - despite spastic being used as a
> common insult, and cerebral palsy.  Plain, unvarnished, and
> straight to the point.  And now the words seem about to be
> superseded, I feel a very odd affection (!?) for them, they are
> ingrained as part of who I am, and - VERY oddly - I no longer feel
> the shame and stigma that the world attaches to them.  Strange....
>
> I'd have to agree with your rhetorical question, Bobby.
>
> And `dystonia', sounds like a small Eastern-European country to me,
> rather than a medical term. ;-)

And Groucho Marx was king ("I don't believe in no 'Sanity Clause'").

> Rayna

Cheers

Deri