Essential tremor, which is also known as familial tremor or, when it appears for the first time in old age, as senile tremor, has attracted interest out of proportion to its incidence or importance as a cause of disability. Critchley, surveying the subject in 1949, was able to provide over 100 references to the literature. This interest stems from the unusual features of the condition. It is no...

BACKGROUND Primary writing tremor is a task-specific phenomenon that has been described as variants of essential tremor or dystonia. PHENOMENOLOGY SHOWN We describe the case of a 63-year-old female who initially had primary writing tremor, later developed Parkinson's disease, and once initiated on carbidopa/levodopa had improvement in her parkinsonism and her writing tremor. EDUCATIONAL VAL...

Essential tremor (ET) is a common movement disorder but its pathogenesis remains poorly understood. This has limited the development of effective pharmacotherapy. The current therapeutic armamentaria for ET represent the product of careful clinical observation rather than targeted molecular modeling. Here we review their pharmacokinetics, metabolism, dosing, and adverse effect profiles and prop...

Essential tremor (ET), the cause of which remains poorly understood, is one of the most common neurological disorders. While environmental agents have been proposed to play a role, genetic factors are believed to contribute to its onset. Thus far, three gene loci (ETM1 on 3q13, ETM2 on 2p24.1 and a locus on 6p23) have been identified in patients and families with the disorder. In addition, a Se...

Essential tremor (ET) is one of the most common movement disorders in the world. Despite this, only one medication (propranolol) is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat it. Fortunately, recent studies have identified some additional medications as treatment of ET. Surgical procedures, such as deep brain stimulation of the ventral intermediate nucleus of the thalamus, offe...

OBJECTIVE The pharmacological therapy for essential tremor (ET) is inadequate, and many patients resort to surgical procedures. Zonisamide is an antiepileptic with several potential mechanisms of action. MATERIALS AND METHODS We evaluated zonisamide for ET in an open-label pilot trial. The primary efficacy point was the change in the Tremor Study Group rating scale (TSGRS) scores. RESULTS T...

OBJECTIVE To characterize the olfactory identification in 40 essential tremor (ET) patients, with the University of Pennsylvania 12 Smell Identification Test (UPSIT), to correlate UPSIT scores to clinical and epidemiological data and to compare it to 89 aged matched controls. METHOD Patients were assessed using ET Clinical Scale of Evaluation and UPSIT. RESULTS In patients with ET, the UPSI...