Tremor
What is Tremor?
Tremor, also known colloquially as shaking; They are involuntary, rhythmic oscillations caused by variable or harmonious contraction of reciprocal muscles that move a body part. Tremors are involuntary muscle movements that occur with many diseases. Let's try to explain tremor with questions.
What are the Types of Tremor?
Tremor types are as follows;
- Rest: It occurs in the hands, arms and legs during rest.
- Action: Occurs during movements.
- Postural: Extremity or body part such as hand, arm and leg in a certain posture
- occurs during retention
- Kinetic: Occurs during the initiation of voluntary movement
- Intention: Occurs when a voluntary movement is terminated.
- Task-specific: Occurs during certain specific movements, such as writing and playing musical instruments
- Orthostatic: Tremor seen in the legs after standing up, causing the body to shake.
- Rubral (Holmes tremor): It is seen at rest and increases significantly with movement.
What Causes Tremor?
Causes of tremor are as follows:
- Aging
- Fear, anxiety, stress and excitement
- Muscle aches and fatigue
- Excessive caffeine consumption
Medical conditions that may cause tremors are as follows:
- Causes related to congenital or acquired structural changes in the brain
- Stroke
- Traumatic brain injury
- Parkinson's disease
- MS disease
- brain tumors
- Endocrine/metabolic causes
- galactosemia
- Phenylketonuria
- hepatic encephalopathy
- hyperthyroidism
- hypomagnesemia
- such as Wilson's disease
- Genetic/chromosomal/degenerative causes
- Leukodystrophies
- Ataxic syndromes
- Peripheral neuropathies
- due to old age
- toxic causes
- Toxic gas inhalation
- Lead, mercury poisoning
- Nutritional reasons
- B12 deficiency
- Kwashiorkor disease (protein deficiency)
- Reasons for drug use
- anticonvulsants
- Neuroleptics
- Bronchodilators
- Like tricyclic antidepressants...
What is Essential Tremor?
Essential tremor, one of the most common types of tremor, is a tremor disease of unknown cause. It is a tremor that comes from the genes. Tremors are observed especially in the hands and arms of the patients. These tremors increase even more when they enter a stressful environment or get excited. It makes daily life limiting in later ages.
What is Parkinson's Tremor?
The second most common tremor is Parkinson's tremors. Parkinson's tremor is a common movement disorder that often affects the hands, but can also be seen in the arms, head, vocal cords, body and legs. It starts in a certain area of the body and progresses to other parts. Parkinson's, a progressive disease, prevents the patient from performing daily tasks and reduces the quality of life. Gait and balance disorders are other important symptoms of the disease.
What is Tremor Treatment?
As with all movement disorders, medical/drug treatment is started for Tremor after a thorough neurological examination and appropriate diagnostic tests. Dosage adjustments or different drug groups may be added depending on the course of the disease. If the discomfort persists despite drug treatment and cannot be controlled, a solution is sought with surgical treatment options such as Deep Brain Stimulation / Brain Stimulation (DBS). If DBS surgery is performed on appropriate patients at the right time, it contributes greatly to controlling the patient's complaints and improving the quality of life.