akinesia

n. Inability to initiate voluntary movements. Akinetic mutism is a condition in which the person is both akinetic and mute. In akinetic mutism the patient is awake, but immobile (akinetic), mute, and unresponsive to commands. It is generally associated with frontal lobe damage, usually bilateral mesial frontal pathology involving the cingulate gyrus, but has also been reported as a result of damage in other brain areas, such as the basal ganglia, or the fornix, the medial nuclei of the thalamus, and as a result of diffuse white matter disease. Differential diagnoses include locked-in state and catatonia. Different etiologies have been reported in cases of akinesia, including toxic (e.g., carbon monoxide intoxication), infectious (e.g., encephalitis), vascular (e.g., infarcts of the anterior cerebral artery), degenerative (e.g., frontal-subcortical dementia), neoplastic (e.g., olfactory groove meningioma), and traumatic (e.g., frontal lobe contusions). - AA