Essential tremor

Description

Physical therapy treatment for ET primarily focuses on resistance training. Typically, this is done on the upper extremity to improve strength and coordination, and to reduce tremor severity. Six weeks of resistance training using bicep curls, wrist flexion and extension has been shown to improve these outcome measures[15][16]. Even performing isometric loads on the index finger reduces pointing variability for patients with ET[17]. In addition to resistance training, behavioral relaxation therapy has been shown to decrease the tremor severity. Behavioral relaxation involves putting the patient into a relaxed position using a ten-step progression. This is done because stress has been shown to increase the severity of tremors[18].