Objective: Our research aims to investigate the characteristic of non-motor symptoms of essential tremor patients, particularly cognition and anxiety depression degree.

Background: Non-motor symptoms of essential tremor(ET)have being growly recognized by neurologists, including cognitive impairment and neuropsychological disorders makes it a heterogeneous complex like Parkinson‘s disease(PD). Our research aims to investigate non-motor features of essential tremor and compare with Parkinson‘s disease patients through a large sample.

Methods: 72 ET patients and 81 PD patient as well as 85 healthy controls were enrolled, cognition tests (Mini-mental State Examination, MMSE and Montreal Cognitive Assessment, MoCA), neuropsychological tests (Hamilton Anxiety Scale, HAMA and Hamilton Depression Scale, HAMD) also other PD related test( HRS and Non-motor Symptom Scale, NMSS) were evaluated by neurology specialist, Multivariable linear regression analysis and Mann-Whitney u test were presented.

Results: After adjust for sex, age, education status, duration of the disease and the disease severity(TRS fro ET and UPDRS for PD),the mean MoCA score was 23.10±4.998 in the ET group, 21.27±5.967 in the PD group, which were both beneath the control group(P<0.01). The mean score in HAMA,HAMD and NMSS of ET are 4.86±4.380、5.10±5.075、17.97±16.784 respectively. Both ET and PD patients scored higher in HAMA, HAMD and total NMSS than healthy controls(P<0.01), while there was no statistical differences in MMSE scores between ET ,PD and control groups(p=0.086).

Conclusions: Our research demonstrated that ET patients also suffered from deficit of cognition, anxiety, depression and sleeping disorder et al, though there is lack of large populations based research on ET patients, it suggests besides the long-term constant motor symptoms, this neurodegenerative disease may hideously damaging circuits between prefrontal cortex to basal ganglia region which could devastate the life quality of ET patients, that calls for more concerns.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/cognitive-impairment-and-neuropsychological-disorders-in-essential-tremor/