Dementia More Likely in Patients With Essential Tremor Than Other Groups

Compared with the general population, patients with essential tremor have a greater risk of developing dementia, according to the findings of a prospective, longitudinal study to be presented at the 2024 American Academy of Neurology (AAN) annual meeting on April 17.

Few studies have comprehensively assessed the prevalence of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia among patients with essential tremor. However, it is established that dementia in essential tremor is associated with loss of functional ability and a 2-fold increase in mortality.

Researchers from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and Columbia University Medical Center designed this study to evaluate annual rates of MCI and dementia among patients with essential tremor (N=222; mean age, 79.3). The researchers recruited Conversion to MCI and dementia were evaluated at 18, 36, 54, and 72 months. A historical control cohort of patients with Parkinson disease (PD) was used as the comparator group.

During an average 5.1 years of follow-up, the cumulative prevalence of MCI was 26.6%; 12.2% of patients converted from MCI to dementia, and the cumulative prevalence of dementia was 18.5%.

The rate of MCI among the essential tremor cohort was nearly twice the rate observed among the general population but less than what is observed among patients with Parkinson disease. Similarly, these dementia rates were nearly 3 times higher than rates observed among the general population and approximately half of the rates observed among patients with Parkinson disease.

“We present the most complete exposition of the longitudinal trajectory of cognitive impairment in an ET [essential tremor] cohort. Our data indicate that the prevalence of and conversion rates to dementia in ET fall between those associated with the natural course of aging and the more pronounced rates observed in individuals with PD.”