Slide 2 of 36
In 1954, Dr.
Rett, a Viennese physician, first noticed this syndrome in two girls as they sat in his waiting room with their mothers. He observed these children making the same repetitive hand-washing motions. Curious, he compared their clinical and developmental histories and discovered they were very similar
In 1960, young female patients in Sweden with quite similar symptoms caught the eye of their own physician, Dr.
Bengt Hagberg. Dr. Hagberg collected the records of these girls and put them aside, intending to return to them when he had more time to study this curious phenomenon.
But in 1983 an article on RS appeared in the mainstream, English-language journal, Annals of Neurology. Written by Dr.
Hagberg and his colleagues, the report finally raised the profile of RS. This article was a breakthrough in communicating details of the disease to a wide audience, and the authors honoured its pioneering researcher by naming it Rett Syndrome.