Article Text
Abstract
Essential tremor is the most common form of tremor in humans. Given neurologists’ high exposure to this condition, and its seemingly straightforward phenotype, it might seem easy to diagnose. However, 30%–50 % of patients labelled as having ‘essential tremor’ have other diagnoses, mostly Parkinson’s disease and dystonia. The tremor of essential tremor is neither non-descript nor featureless but is multifaceted and highly patterned. This review focuses on its clinical features, beginning with a discussion of tremors and then briefly discussing its additional motor features, and presents several aids to help distinguish essential tremor from Parkinson’s disease and dystonia. Careful attention to certain clinical nuances will aid the diagnosis and care of patients with essential tremor.
- essential tremor
- clinical neurology
- neurological examination
- tremor
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Footnotes
Funding This study was funded by NINDS (R01NS073872, R01NS086736, R01NS088257, R01NS094607).
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent for publication Not required.
Provenance and peer review Commissioned. Externally peer reviewed by Peter Bain,
London, UK
Read the full text or download the PDF:
Other content recommended for you
- Essential tremor: diagnosis and management
- Supine head tremor: a clinical comparison of essential tremor and spasmodic torticollis patients
- THE MANAGEMENT OF TREMOR
- A practical guide to the differential diagnosis of tremor
- Estimating annual rate of decline: prospective, longitudinal data on arm tremor severity in two groups of essential tremor cases
- Multicentre European study of thalamic stimulation in parkinsonian and essential tremor
- Systematic clinical approach for diagnosing upper limb tremor
- Irregularity distinguishes limb tremor in cervical dystonia from essential tremor
- Bilateral stimulation of the caudal zona incerta nucleus for tremor control
- Rest and other types of tremor in adult-onset primary dystonia