What is ataxia?
Ataxia is a symptom, not a specific disease or diagnosis. Ataxia means clumsiness, or loss of coordination. Ataxia may affect the fingers and hands, the arms or legs, the body, speech or eye movements. This loss of coordination may be caused by a number of different medical or neurologic conditions; for this reason, it is important that a person with ataxia seek medical attention to determine the underlying cause of the symptom and to get the appropriate treatment.

Disease characteristics:
The hereditary ataxias are a group of genetic disorders characterized by slowly progressive incoordination of gait and often associated with poor coordination of hands, speech, and eye movements. Frequently, atrophy of the cerebellum occurs. The hereditary ataxias are categorized by mode of inheritance and causative gene or chromosomal locus.

Not sure where to look? Try looking at one of the classification sites below first.

Classifications

	Ataxias: Classification  From Washington. University of St Louis
	Dominant ataxias  (from WUStL)
	Recessive ataxias  (from WUStL)
	Spinal  (from WUStL)
	Systemic Ataxias  (such as thyroid) as well as most all of the others. (from WUStL)
	Pediatric Database description of Ataxic Disorders