Objective: To evaluate the effects of ambulatory transcranial pulsed electromagnetic field (PEMF) stimulation on rest and postural tremor in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD).

Background: Tremor is a disabling symptom of PD with limited response to dopaminergic therapy. Previous studies of non-invasive neuromodulation approaches such as PEMF stimulation showed a potential impact on motor and non-motor symptoms of PD. The DCcure device by Aerotel Ltd is a wearable neuromodulation PEMF system used to investigate its effect in reducing resting and postural tremor in patients with PD.

Method: Patients with PD were recruited from a movement disorders clinic and were home-treated with the DCcure wearable PEMF device applied to the scalp for 40 minutes twice daily for six weeks. Clinical evaluations were performed at baseline, mid-treatment (3 weeks), end of treatment (6 weeks). Tremor severity was assessed using Movement Disorder Society-Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS) tremor scores for rest and postural tremor, together with objective accelerometry using a wrist-worn tri-axial sensor (OPAL). Participants demonstrating >30% improvement in tremor power between baseline and week 6 were classified as responders.

Results: Fifty patients were recruited. Based on accelerometer-derived tremor power, 61% of patients with rest tremor and 53.7% with postural tremor were classified as responders. Across all participants, rest tremor scores on MDS-UPDRS showed a trend toward improvement after six weeks of treatment (2.4±0.2 to 2.2±0.3, p=0.07). However, among responders, rest tremor scores significantly improved from 2.4±0.3 to 1.9±0.4 (p<0.01), accompanied by a significant reduction in tremor power measured by accelerometry (p<0.01). Postural tremor scores on MDS-UPDRS significantly decreased in the overall cohort from 2.0±0.2 to 1.7±0.3 (p=0.0003). Responders demonstrated a similar improvement, with postural tremor scores declining from 2.0±0.4 to 1.6±0.4 (p<0.01) and significant reductions in tremor power (p<0.01). Clinical changes correlated with accelerometer-derived tremor metrics (p<0.001).

Conclusion: Ambulatory twice-daily PEMF stimulation using the DCcure device was associated with improvements of rest and postural tremor in patients with PD. These findings suggest that home-based PEMF therapy may represent a promising non-invasive approach for tremor management in PD.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/ambulatory-pemf-stimulation-using-the-dccure-device-improves-rest-and-postural-tremor-in-patients-with-pd/