Researchers associate essential tremor with 60 percent increased risk of developing dementia.

Medscape (8/27, Anderson) reported that, according to a study published Aug. 25 in Neurology, “older patients with essential tremor (ET) are almost twice as likely to have dementia compared with their counterparts without ET,” and “ET is associated with about a 60 percent increased risk of developing dementia.” Researchers from Columbia University studied “2,285 white, black, and Hispanic patients aged 65 years and older,” evaluating them “for depressive and neurological symptoms at baseline, and again every 18 months. To determine the presence of ET, the researchers used various handwriting tests and independent analyses by a neurologist.” The investigators found that, “of the 124 patients with ET, 31 (25.0 percent) had dementia, compared with 198 (9.2 percent) of 2,161 control patients.” Surprisingly, “ET was not associated with increased risk of developing” mild cognitive impairment (MCI), even though “many patients with MCI eventually develop dementia.”

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