Essential Tremor Press Releases

After reviewing the most frequently watched YouTube videos about movement disorders, a group of neurologists found that the people in the videos often do not have a movement disorder. As described in a Letter to the Editor in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine, such medical misinformation may confuse patients seeking health information and advice online.

Maestro Leon Fleisher, one of the world's most renowned classical pianists and three-time Grammy-nominee, will perform selections from his critically acclaimed new CD "Two Hands" at a pre-Thanksgiving event at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). More than 40 years ago, at the height of his career, Mr. Fleisher lost the use of his right hand to dystonia, the third most common neurological movement disorder after Parkinson's disease and essential tremor. He could no longer play the piano with both hands and the frequently misdiagnosed disorder severely impeded his performance of everyday tasks. About 10 years ago, physicians at the NIH were able to diagnose the problem as a focal dystonia and start him on a therapy which helped to reverse the condition.

Researchers from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke have located a gene locus responsible for the most common human movement disorder, essential tremor (ET). In an article in the November 1997 issue of Movement Disorders, Joseph J. Higgins, M.D., Lana T. Pho, and Linda E. Nee, M.S.W., report how they traced the gene to the short arm of chromosome 2.