Palilalia is a type of speech characterized by compulsive repetition of words, phrases, or syllables. Several reports have noted that palilalia can occur in response to external verbal stimuli. Here, we report, for the first time, a patient with palilalia induced by gait, which we call “movement-related palilalia.”
Eleven months after the onset of cerebral infarction sparing the right precentral gyrus and its adjacent subcortical regions, a 63-year-old, left-handed Japanese man was referred for psychiatric consultation because of a complaint of irritability caused by the stress of compulsive repetition of a single meaningless word, “wai.” The repetition of a word, palilalia, in this case, was characterized by its predominant occurrence during walking and by its melodic tones. The palilalia during walking disappeared almost completely after 5 months of treatment with carbamazepine 600 mg.
Palilalia induced by gait can occur in patients with a history of cerebral infarction. This palilalia during walking may be due to the reorganization of networks in areas nearby or surrounding cerebral infarcts.