Preliminary Study of Behavioral Therapy for Tourette Syndrome Patients in Japan

Abstract

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a chronic neurobehavioral disorder of childhood characterized by motor and vocal tics. The authors aimed to show the feasibility of Comprehensive Behavioral Intervention for Tics (CBIT) for pediatric Tourette syndrome patients in Japan. Seven subjects (age 9 to 20 years) were treated with CBIT. Changes in tic severity, premonitory urges, and subjective distress associated with tics were investigated over the course of 9 treatment sessions. Results showed that significant decrease of tic severity and improvement of their subjective distress of tics. However, the subjective distress from coprolalia was difficult to change. The treatment for outburst of coprolalia should be investigated more.