Rare diseases · Sign or symptom
Rigidity
Muscle rigidity
HP:0002063
What it means
Continuous involuntary sustained muscle contraction. When an affected muscle is passively stretched, the degree of resistance remains constant regardless of the rate at which the muscle is stretched. This feature helps to distinguish rigidity from muscle spasticity.
Rigidity is often a manifestation of basal ganglia diseases.
Rare diseases that can present with this75
Very common80–99%
14- Atypical juvenile parkinsonism
- Autosomal dominant striatal neurodegeneration
- Autosomal spastic paraplegia type 72
- Caribbean parkinsonism
- CLN12 disease
- Desmosterolosis
- Early-onset parkinsonism-intellectual disability syndrome
- Hereditary hyperekplexia
- Kufor-Rakeb syndrome
- Microcephalic osteodysplastic primordial dwarfism types I and III
- Mitochondrial membrane protein-associated neurodegeneration
- Neuhauser-Eichner-Opitz syndrome
- X-linked spasticity-intellectual disability-epilepsy syndrome
- Young-onset Parkinson disease
Common30–79%
33- Atypical pantothenate kinase-associated neurodegeneration
- Atypical progressive supranuclear palsy syndrome
- Autosomal dominant dopa-responsive dystonia
- Autosomal recessive dopa-responsive dystonia
- Autosomal recessive spastic paraplegia type 28
- Beta-propeller protein-associated neurodegeneration
- Bilateral striopallidodentate calcinosis
- Cirrhosis-dystonia-polycythemia-hypermanganesemia syndrome
- Cyanide-induced parkinsonism-dystonia
- Delayed encephalopathy due to carbon monoxide poisoning
- Dopa-responsive dystonia due to sepiapterin reductase deficiency
- Dravet syndrome
- Encephalocraniocutaneous lipomatosis
- Familial acute necrotizing encephalopathy
- Focal stiff limb syndrome
- Fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome
- Huntington disease-like syndrome due to C9ORF72 expansions
- Juvenile Huntington disease
- Marinesco-Sjögren syndrome
- Multiple system atrophy
- Multiple system atrophy, parkinsonian type
- Pantothenate kinase-associated neurodegeneration
- Parkinsonian-pyramidal syndrome
- PLA2G6-related neurodegeneration, adult-onset
- PLAA-associated neurodevelopmental disorder
- Primary progressive freezing gait
- Progressive supranuclear palsy-corticobasal syndrome
- Progressive supranuclear palsy-predominant parkinsonism syndrome
- Spinocerebellar ataxia type 17
- Spinocerebellar ataxia type 21
- Spinocerebellar ataxia type 8
- Stiff person spectrum disorder
- Tetanus
Sometimes5–29%
24- 6-pyruvoyl-tetrahydropterin synthase deficiency
- Aceruloplasminemia
- Alexander disease type II
- Alternating hemiplegia of childhood
- Autosomal dominant progressive external ophthalmoplegia
- Autosomal recessive cerebellar ataxia due to STUB1 deficiency
- Cerebral autosomal recessive arteriopathy-subcortical infarcts-leukoencephalopathy
- Familial infantile bilateral striatal necrosis
and 16 more in this range
The range is how often this sign appears among people diagnosed with each disease — it is not a probability of having any of them. Many of these signs also occur in common, non-rare conditions, and Orphanet separately records 2 diseases where this sign is specifically absent. A sign on this page is a conversation to have with a clinician, not a conclusion.
Part of the broader category
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Start free with EleplanThis page uses the Human Phenotype Ontology (2026-06-23) — Human Phenotype Ontology Consortium, hpo.jax.org. Disease associations from Orphanet (INSERM), CC BY 4.0. Content is educational and is not medical advice.