title: The Clinical Evaluation of Parkinson's Tremor.
abstract: Parkinson's disease harbours many different tremors that differ in distribution, frequency, and context in which they occur. A good clinical tremor assessment is important for weighing up possible differential diagnoses of Parkinson's disease, but also to measure the severity of the tremor as a basis for further tailored treatment. This can be challenging, because Parkinson's tremor amplitude is typically very variable and context-dependent. Here, we outline how we investigate Parkinson's tremor in the clinic. We describe a simple set of clinical tasks that can be used to constrain tremor variability (cognitive and motor co-activation, several specific limb postures). This may help to adequately characterize the tremor(s) occurring in a patient with Parkinson's disease.
authors.affiliation: Radboud University Medical Centre, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Department of Neurology, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.|Department of Neurology, Medical University of Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Heidemarie
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zach
authors.affiliation: Radboud University Medical Centre, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Department of Neurology, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Michiel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dirkx
authors.affiliation: Radboud University Medical Centre, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Department of Neurology, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Bastiaan R
authors.initials: BR
authors.lastname: Bloem
authors.affiliation: Radboud University Medical Centre, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Department of Neurology, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Rick C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Helmich
mesh_terms: D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D006801:Humans; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000150:complications*; D014202:Tremor / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology
keywords: Parkinson’s disease; clinical examination; tremor