Introduction: Ballism is a rare movement disorder that presents with violent and wide amplitude flinging movements of the limbs, mainly caused by injury in the contralateral subthalamic nucleus or its afferent or efferent connections.
Clinical case: We describe the case of a 50-year old male who had ballistic movements after a cervical trauma. He subsequently developed choreoathetoid movements and a distonic attitude in the left upper limb later. A C2-C3 sensory level and proprioceptive loss in this limb were the main findings in the examination. The cervical magnetic resonance showed a transverse linear spinal lesion at C1 level that affected most of its section.
Conclusions: This case stands outs because of the wide abnormal movements spectrum secondary to spinal proprioceptive pathway injury: ballistic, choreoathetoid, and distonic movements. Choreoathetoid movements occurring in association with loss of propioception have been called pseudochoreoathetosis. We propose the term pseudoballism to define the movements that were observed during the acute phase in this patient.