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John Crowe's hands were often shaky, but MRI-guided focused ultrasound treatment made his tremor decrease. Read John's story.

Essential tremor is the most common movement disorder, affecting an estimated 10 million Americans.

Essential tremor can be debilitating, making it difficult to do many routine activities like eating, using utensils, holding a cup of coffee, using a computer or smartphone, or signing your name.

The University of Maryland Medical Center is using the latest medications and technology to treat the disease.

To speak with our team about how we treat essential tremor with focused ultrasound and through clinical trials, email us at FocusedUltrasound@som.umaryland.edu or call:

Essential Tremor Symptoms

Essential tremor can occur in families but also without an family history.

The tremor involves the hands and arms. It rarely affects the head and voice.

It can be misdiagnosed as Parkinson's disease. While similar, there are some differences:

  • Essential tremor's shakiness is mostly seen during action or while holding the arm in a fixed position.
  • Parkinson's disease's shakes appear at a resting state, for example while your hands are resting in your lap.

While making a diagnosis, it is important to have an experienced doctor who can identify the differences between the two diseases and, when necessary, can distinguish between the two while using a special brain scan.

Treating Essential Tremor

At the University of Maryland Medical Center, we offer essential tremor patients a variety of treatment options:

Medications

Propranolol and other drugs can help reduce the tremor. Patients can develop a tolerance to the drug, diminishing the effect over time.

Deep Brain Stimulation

The standard of care for treatment the past 15+ years, DBS involves the implantation an electrode into a target area deep inside the brain. When activated, the electrode helps regulate shakiness.

Learn more about deep brain stimulation.

MRI-guided Focused Ultrasound

A new, non-invasive technology for treating essential tremor, focused ultrasound is guided by MRI, precisely directing energy to a defined target in the brain without using an incision.

This procedure was approved by the US FDA for one side of the brain (right or left) in 2016. The University of Maryland Medical Center is participating in a clinical trial designed to study the use of this treatment for patients who previously received the treatment on one side of the brain, this time receiving the treatment in the opposite side.

Learn more about MRI-guided Focused Ultrasound.

Contact Us

For more information about focused ultrasound and clinical trials or to make an appointment, email us at FocusedUltrasound@som.umaryland.edu or call:

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