The primary aim of this report is to draw attention to a common, but not previously characterised condition, which I name ‘leg stereotypy disorder’. This term highlights two most important features of this movement disorder: (1) it occurs almost exclusively in legs, and (2) it consists of a repetitive, patterned movement, best characterised as stereotypy. While there is no consensus on the definition of stereotypy, descriptions in the literature have ranged from ‘involuntary or unvoluntary (in response to or induced by inner sensory stimulus or unwanted feeling), coordinated, patterned, repetitive, rhythmic, seemingly purposeless movements or utterances’1 to the more recent definition as ‘a movement that is repeated in the same form continuously and often for long periods of time at the expense of other movements’.2 Stereotypies are often seen in the setting of autism, tardive dyskinesia, and a variety of neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric disorders such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia and catatonia.3

Although not previously reported in a peer-reviewed literature, leg stereotypy disorder was briefly mentioned in a recent review on sensory aspects of movement disorder.4 After a brief description of the disorder, along with a video demonstrating the typical phenomenology (see online supplementary video 1), during my 2014 Stanley …