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EntityQ574360· pop 47· linked from 406 articles

Also known as muscle spasm, muscular spasm

A spasm is a sudden involuntary contraction of a muscle, a group of muscles, or a hollow organ, such as the bladder.

Key facts

Medical condition (new).name
Muscle spasm
Medical condition (new).specialty
Neurology

via Wikipedia infobox

Research

38,991 papers

via PubMed

Wikidata facts

Instance of
symptom or sign
Subclass of
clinical sign
Show 5 more facts
ICPC 2 ID
L14
drug or therapy used for treatment
methocarbamol
NCI Thesaurus ID
C50656
different from
muscle cramp
Sources (6)

via Wikidata · CC0

~2 min read

Encyclopedic overview

7 sections
Contents
  • Description and causes
  • Causes
  • Effects
  • Types of spasm
  • See also
  • References
  • External links

A spasm is a sudden involuntary contraction of a muscle, a group of muscles, or a hollow organ, such as the bladder.

A spasmodic muscle contraction may be caused by many medical conditions, including dystonia. Most commonly, it is a muscle cramp which is accompanied by a sudden burst of pain. A muscle cramp is usually harmless and ceases after a few minutes. It is typically caused by ion imbalance or muscle fatigue.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “spasm” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.