ABSTRACT

There are a lot of factors that influence handwriting and signatures. Among these factors can be listed some of them sııch as the position of the body, vvriting surface, writing instrument, emotional state, various drugs, alcohol, neııro- leptic or stimulant drugs, physical and mental diseases and aging

Writer' s cramp is a focal dystonia that holds upper ext-remities as a ıııost frequent dystonia type. This disease ef-fects handwriting rapidly and seriously.

In our study we evaluated the handwriting samples of 38 patients with writer‘ s cramp. Handwriting and signatures of the patients that have been diagnosed as writer' s cramp or writer' s cramp and writer' s tremor were exami-ned according to the criteria used in forensic document exa-mination.

3 of 38 patients were female. The patients' ages vvere between 24-80 and medium age was 46.5. Medium disease period was 3 3 y'ears. 20 of 38 patients staned to write wi(h a normal handvvriting and deteriorated after vvriting a few sentences later and handvvriting of 18 of 38 patients were broken in onset and got rnore deteriorated with vvriting. Handwriting of 6 of 38 patients displayed a pueril charac-ter.

Handvvriting and signature examination is an important vvorking area in daily forensic medicine practices. Thus ali document examiners must be careful and vvell-informed abo-ut various diseases and their effects upon handvvriting and signatures. Othervvise, misinterpretation in the expertise re-ports vvill be inevitable in forensic document examination.

Keywords: Writer’s cramp, forensic document exami-nation, forensic medicine, handvvriting.