Quality of life in a random sample of community dwelling older patients with essential tremor

Abstract

STUDY OBJECTIVE - Nested case-control study aimed to assess the quality of life of community dwelling participants aged 65 years or over with newly diagnosed Essential Tremor (ET). METHODS AND RESULTS - Thirty-two participants with newly diagnosed ET and 32 age and gender matched controls were administered the Rand-SF36 quality of life questionnaire. Medical co-morbidities were also assessed in the two groups. Results - Participants with ET had significantly lower scores in the physical function, role limitation because of physical function, role limitation as a result of emotional problem, pain, and energy/vitality subscales of the Rand-SF36 when compared with controls. CONCLUSIONS - Older patients with newly diagnosed ET have poorer quality of life than their community dwelling counterparts without ET.

Imaging Findings in MR Imaging-Guided Focused Ultrasound Treatment for Patients with Essential Tremor

“…Essential tremor is a common and disabling movement disorder with an estimated prevalence of 0.3%-5.55%. [12][13][14][15][16][17] Patients with essential tremor may suffer more from the mental effects on quality of life, such as lower perceived health status, 18 than from actual physical symptoms. 19 Essential tremor may be medically refractory: up to 30% of patients do not respond to first-line therapy and may consider surgical options.…”

Thalamotomy for Essential Tremor: A Very Long-Term Follow-Up

“…Since only a few SF-36 profile shave been done on an ET population, it is difficult to speculate on what might be caused by the disease itself and what might be caused by side effects of the surgical procedure. Our patients had a more poor quality of life than the non-operated patients presented by Nguyen et al, and Lorenz et al, [46,47] (Fig. 1).…”

Cognitive and motor functional activity in non-demented community-dwelling essential tremor cases

“…In one study of 37 ET cases and 37 controls ascertained from a community in northern Manhattan, New York, 27 (73.0%) cases reported disability on one or more (mean=8.4) items of a tremor disability questionnaire, and 25 (67.6%) demonstrated moderate or greater difficulty on one or more (mean=4.2) tasks in a performance-based test 10. A community-based study in Sydney, Australia of 32 ET cases and 32 controls noted that scores on the Rand-SF36, a validated general health assessment instrument, were lower in ET cases than controls 11. In particular, the physical function domain scores were on average approximately 27% lower in ET cases than controls (p=0.006).…”

“…In addition, ET cases who attend clinics are self-selected to have greater functional difficulty. There are limited data on functional activity in unbiased samples of ET cases ascertained directly from the population 10 11…”