Ethnicity and movement disorders.

This article is a review of studies involving ethnicity and spontaneous as well as iatrogenic movement disorder. We have focused on Parkinson's disease and tardive dyskinesia. Some early studies reported that African Americans had lower rates of Parkinson's disease than Caucasians, whereas more recent surveys have not found such a difference. Several studies suggested that African Americans have a higher risk of developing tardive dyskinesia than Caucasians, even when differences in neuroleptic drug use are accounted for. Asians seem to have a lower or equal risk of developing tardive dyskinesis as compared with Caucasians. We discuss the possible contribution of ethnicity to the etiology of movement disorders and the implications thereof.