Tourette Syndrome (TS) is named after Dr. George Gilles de la Tourette, the French neurologist who first reported TS in medical literature in 1885. It is a recognised medical condition, which is often inherited, but we don't yet understand the cause. There are treatments, but there is no cure as with many chronic medical conditions. It is a very complex condition and can be described - with equal accuracy - as a movement disorder, and neurological condition, or a neuro-psychiatric condition. TS affects all aspects of life - education, relationships, employability.
The symptoms of TS are tics, repeated movements and sounds. It is important to understand that these are chronic and involuntary. Someone with TS may be able to suppress them for a period but eventually they have to let the tics out.
Tics usually start in childhood around the age of 7 and are likely to persist throughout life, though the symptoms often decrease towards the end of adolescence. The first symptoms are usually facial tics such as rapid blinking or twitches of the mouth, but TS may start with sounds such as throat clearing and sniffing, or even with multiple tics of movements and sounds.
Even within the same person, the tics vary in many ways:
• they wax and wane - they get better and worse over time
• they change - one tic stops and another starts
• they may be made worse by stress and anxiety
• they may be alleviated with relaxation or concentration on an absorbing taskSimple
Eye blinking, head jerking, shoulder shrugging and facial grimacing

Throat clearing, yelping and other noises, sniffing and tongue clicking

Complex
Jumping, touching other people or things, smelling, twirling , and sometimes hitting or biting oneself

Uttering words or phrases out of context, coprolalia (saying socially unacceptable words), and echolalia (repeating a sound, word, or phrase just heard).