Clinical features of essential tremor:An analysis of 51 cases

Objective To explore clinical features of essential tremor(ET).Methods The clinical data of 51 ET patients who were admitted in our hospital from March 2008 to December 2011 were analyzed retrospectively.Results Of the 51 patients,17 were male and 34 female,and the proportion was 1∶2.The age was between 35 and 90 years old with an average of(66.9±14.3) years old.The disease course ranged from 2 to 48 years with an average of(13.0±10.7) years.The clinical manifestations were a mix of positional and volitional tremors.The involved positions included single hand in 6 cases(11.8%),both hands in 43(84.3%),head in 28(54.9%),lower mandible in 14(27.5%) and vocal cord in 2(3.9%).Twenty-four patients(47.1%) had family history.Twenty-seven patients received medication: 16 received propranolol with an overall efficacy rate of 59.4% and 11 received arotinolol with an overall efficacy rate of 100.0%.Conclusion Age is an important risk factor of ET,and the morbidity rises along with the increase of age.The core symptoms of ET are single positional and volitional tremors in hands,head and lower mandible.Most people have family history,and propranolol and arotinolol are effective to them.