Who Should Be on Your Tardive Dyskinesia Care Team?
Tardive DyskinesiaTackling Tardive Dyskinesia

Who Should Be on Your Tardive Dyskinesia Care Team?

Who Should Be on Your Tardive Dyskinesia Care Team?
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Updated on April 3, 2026
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Tardive dyskinesia is a condition that can cause involuntary movements of the face, including the jaw, lips, and tongue. Although it’s less common, other parts of the body can also be affected, leading to unwanted movements of the neck, shoulders, limbs, or torso. You can experience rapid, jerking movements (chorea) or slow, writhing movements (athetosis).

Depending on the severity of the condition, symptoms can impact speech, eating, and even the ability to get around and perform daily activities, such as walking, climbing stairs, or cooking.

Once you’ve worked with your doctor to determine what’s causing your condition — and you’ve discussed potential treatments for tardive dyskinesia, including medications called vesicular monoamine transporter 2 (VMAT2) inhibitors — it can be helpful to consult with other trained specialists. Your healthcare team might include a neurologist or primary care provider, a psychiatrist, and physical, speech, and occupational therapists who can help you manage your physical and mental health and improve your ability to communicate and move independently.

Physician

If you have tardive dyskinesia, you’ll need a physician to handle your core treatment for the movement disorder and, often, to refer you to other specialists. They might be a neurologist or a primary care doctor, depending on specialist availability in your area and your personal preference.

If you developed the disorder due to a medication you’re taking for a mental health condition, you’ll also need a psychiatrist on your team. They can work with you to find a medication regimen that has minimal unwanted effects. You may be advised to stop the drug that caused tardive dyskinesia or lower its dose, if possible.

Speech Therapist

Speech therapists (sometimes called speech-language pathologists or speech pathologists) can help reduce some of the involuntary face and mouth movements that can affect speech, chewing, and swallowing, as well as your appearance and ability to communicate with facial expressions, says Heather Clark, PhD, a speech-language pathologist who specializes in neurologic communication disorders at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

Difficulty speaking with tardive dyskinesia is called hyperkinetic dysarthria, she says. “‘Hyper’ meaning ‘too much’, ‘kinetic’ meaning ‘movement,’ and ‘dysarthria’ indicating that the speech problem arises from the nervous system.”

Speech therapists can also implement techniques called comprehensibility strategies — approaches that are designed to help you improve communication and your ability to hear others. For example, this may mean watching the speaker closely and noting their facial movements and gestures, slowing down your own speech, and using electronic aids such as Zoom or FaceTime to clarify your messages, says Dr. Clark.

Speech-language pathologists can also teach you how to chew and swallow more safely and efficiently, she says. Avoiding certain food textures, taking small bites, and alternating between swallows of liquid and food can all help you eat more easily and lower your risk of choking (something that can be associated with tardive dyskinesia), says Clark.

Physical Therapist

Although you usually see signs of tardive dyskinesia more in the face when speaking and/or swallowing, there can also be unwanted movement in the body, says Monica Leach, DPT, a physical therapist who specializes in working with people with conditions related to the brain at Cleveland Clinic Mellen Center for Multiple Sclerosis.

Physical therapy can help you combat some of those involuntary movements and improve your ability to move more like you once did, she says.

Usually, physical therapy starts with an assessment of your functional abilities and a discussion about how tardive dyskinesia interferes with your daily life, she says. Based on the assessment, the therapist can then develop an individualized treatment plan to address those specific needs.

For example, if tardive dyskinesia is affecting your legs, you may have trouble walking, climbing stairs, or keeping your balance. “In that situation, a person could be referred to us for some gait retraining,” says Leach. Repetition and task practice may be used to work on these issues, she says.

“We can also use different visual, auditory, verbal, or even tactile cuing to help bring awareness to these movement patterns to help make them a little more typical or safe,” Leach says. Therapists can also wrap your limbs with a bandage or a sling to improve sensory input, which can help bring your attention to movements, she says.

“Similarly, weight-bearing activities can help people with tardive dyskinesia have more sensory input through their limbs so that they can try to retrain their movement patterns,” says Leach.

“Tardive dyskinesia can also keep people from moving as much, so they may just be generally deconditioned,” she says. “A physical therapist can design an individualized plan for getting more physical activity.”

Occupational Therapist

Occupational therapists help with the skills that are needed for your “job of life,” says Aaron Nicka, an occupational therapist at Cleveland Clinic Mellen Center. “Basically, that can include any and all tasks you have to be able to do in your day-to-day.”

As with physical therapy, an occupational therapist will first have you complete an assessment, in part because this type of therapy tends to be very individualized, he says.

“Some people with tardive dyskinesia have issues with limb coordination or jerking that can make many everyday tasks difficult,” Nicka says. “I had a person with tardive dyskinesia who was having difficulty using both hands together . . . He was having a hard time with things like getting toothpaste on his toothbrush, which is a two-handed task.”

These symptoms are part of a “wiring problem,” he explains to his patients. “Part of the brain is not functioning well, and as occupational therapists, we work with people to retrain the brain through motor learning and repetition.”

In some cases, tools or life hacks may also be used to achieve tasks of living. For example, if you are experiencing jerking movements but still want to cook your own meals, there are one-handed cutting boards, weighted utensils, and cut-resistant gloves, Nicka says. “Often, we see what we can do as far as rehab first, and then if we need to bring in those aids, we can do that.”

Having a team of therapists in your corner is an important part of managing symptoms of the condition, he says. “Together we can minimize the way that it impacts your life.”

How to Find a Speech, Physical, or Occupational Therapist

As part of a treatment plan for tardive dyskinesia, including medical therapies, your physician should be able to help connect you with therapists in your area.

“The first step should be talking to your provider to get a referral,” Leach says. “This type of therapy falls under the umbrella of ‘neuro rehab,’ and so some people may find therapists by doing an internet search using the term ‘neuro rehab in my area.’”

You might also try asking others with the condition in locally focused social media communities for tardive dyskinesia on platforms such as Facebook. The National Organization for Tardive Dyskinesia also offers online support groups where you may meet people from your area who can offer recommendations.

The Takeaway

  • Tardive dyskinesia, a condition that causes involuntary movements, usually of the face, can affect your speech and ability to eat and perform other physical movements.
  • To treat symptoms of tardive dyskinesia that affect your ability to function, you may be referred to a speech, physical, or occupational therapist, depending on the nature of your difficulties.
  • Your therapist will assess your condition and develop an individualized treatment plan consisting of exercises and adaptations that can help you function better.
EDITORIAL SOURCES
Everyday Health follows strict sourcing guidelines to ensure the accuracy of its content, outlined in our editorial policy. We use only trustworthy sources, including peer-reviewed studies, board-certified medical experts, patients with lived experience, and information from top institutions.
Resources
  1. Tardive Dyskinesia. National Organization for Rare Disorders. July 16, 2025.
  2. About TD. National Organization for Tardive Dyskinesia.
  3. Raza M et al. Tardive Dyskinesia. StatPearls. January 31, 2026.
  4. Tardive Dyskinesia. U.S. Pharmacist. June 15, 2023.
  5. Rowe HP et al. Characterizing Dysarthria Diversity for Automatic Speech Recognition: A Tutorial From the Clinical Perspective. Frontiers in Computer Science. April 11, 2022.
  6. Dysarthria in Adults. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
  7. Speech Therapy. South County Health.
  8. Physical Therapy. National Institutes of Health.
  9. Reclaiming Everyday Life Through Occupational Therapy. Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation. May 15, 2025.
  10. Frederin S. Neurorehabilitation Strategies for Enhanced Brain Function and Recovery. Neuropsychiatry. August 20, 2024.
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Jason Paul Chua, MD, PhD

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Jason Chua, MD, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Neurology and Division of Movement Disorders at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He received his training at th...

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