Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Treatments and drugs
By Mayo Clinic staffThere's no treatment specifically for ataxia. In some cases, treating the underlying cause resolves the ataxia. In other cases, such as ataxia that results from chickenpox or other viral infection, it's likely to resolve on its own over time. Your doctor may recommend adaptive devices or therapies to help with your ataxia.
Adaptive devices
For ataxia caused by conditions such as multiple sclerosis or cerebral palsy, ataxia might not be treatable. In that case, your doctor may be able to recommend adaptive devices. They include:
- Canes or walkers for walking
- Modified utensils for eating
- Communication aids for speaking
Therapies
You might benefit from certain therapies, including:
- Physical therapy to help you build strength and enhance your mobility
- Occupational therapy to help you with daily living tasks, such as feeding yourself
- Speech therapy to improve speech and aid swallowing
- NINDS ataxias and cerebellar or spinocerebellar degeneration information page. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/ataxia/ataxia.htm. Accessed Dec. 29, 2008.
- NINDS Friedreich's ataxia information page. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/friedreichs_ataxia/friedreichs_ataxia.htm. Accessed Dec. 29, 2008.
- NINDS Ataxia telangiectasia information page. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/a_t/a-t.htm. Accessed Dec. 29, 2008.
- Opal P, et al. The spinocerebellar ataxias. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed Jan. 5, 2009.
- NINDS paraneoplastic syndromes information page. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/paraneoplastic/paraneoplastic.htm. Accessed Dec. 29, 2008.
- Jen JC, et al. Primary episodic ataxias: Diagnosis, pathogenesis and treatment. Brain. 2007;130:2484. Accessed Dec. 15, 2008.
- Ataxia telangiectasia: Fact sheet. National Cancer Institute. http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/ataxiaqa. Accessed Jan. 11, 2009.
- FA beginner's primer. Freidrich's Ataxia Research Alliance. http://www.curefa.org/primer.html. Accessed Jan. 11, 2009.
- Adult ataxia information for patients and caregivers. Worldwide education and awareness for movement disorders. http://www.wemove.org/ataxia/. Accessed Jan. 11, 2009.
