What is the Congenital Mirror Movement Disorder (MOMIC) ?

The congenital mirror movement disorder is a rare disease (1/1 million) of the nervous system development. This disease is congenital, which means that children have it from birth. 
The disease’s manifestations appear in the first two years of life, as infants learn to use their hands, and persist throughout life. However, mirror movements can occur in children, physiologically up to the age of 10 yo.
When people with this disease try to make a movement with one hand, the other hand performs, at the same time, the same movement, and this against the will of the subject. It is therefore impossible for them to make a pure unimanual movement, and the realization of coordinated but different movements of both hands is very difficult (for example opening a jar of jam). There is no other neurological symptom associated.

Patients can also have pain in their hands and arms when they use them for a long time during the day. 
Children with this syndrome are in difficulty very early in schooling despite normal intellectual abilities. This handicap may cause a loss of opportunity for those children. Moreover, they are often stigmatized because their symptoms are very visible, which can lead to a loss of self-confidence and a social inhibition that accompanies them for the rest of their life, in addition to their motor difficulties. There is no effective treatment for this disease to date.