Quality of life in a random sample of community dwelling older patients with essential tremor Introduction Essential tremor (ET) is a common neurological disease, increasing in prevalence with advancing age. Its occurrence ranges from 5.9% in the 60–69 age group to 8.7% in persons aged 80 years or over (1). However, the hallmark of ET – the kinetic non-uniform tremor involving bilateral upper limbs and less frequently lower limbs, head, face, voice and trunk, may be a feature of a number of other neurological disorders, thus the true prevalence of ET is not really known (2). Age, a family history of ET and Caucasian background have been shown to increase the risk of ET (3). While there may be no increased mortality associated with ET (1, 3), patients can suffer significant disability from the physical manifestations of the disease. The progression of the tremor over time may lead to impairment in activities of daily living (ADL) such as eating, writing, dressing and personal care resulting in reduced quality of life (4–6). Previous studies have examined the quality of life and daily functioning of patients with advanced ET particularly in the context of various drug treatments and deep brain stimulation (7–9). To our knowledge there have been few studies com- paring the quality of life of ET sufferers to non-ET sufferers in a case-control design (10, 11). In addition, there has been no such study on ran- domly selected community dwelling older patients with ET. This group of patients probably makes up the majority of ET cases. Louis et al. (10) and Lorenz et al. (11) examined the functional disabil- ity and quality of life (respectively) in patients with ET selected from specialist referral centres but did not assess prevalent medical co-morbidities that could potentially impact on the quality of life of the study group. With this in mind, we set out to assess the quality of life of community dwelling older participants with newly diagnosed ET in a case-control study design, taking into account co-morbid diseases in the study group. Methods Study participants The participants were part of a larger (door-to-door- knock) study into the prevalence of ParkinsonÕs Acta Neurol Scand 2007: 116: 289–292 DOI: 10.1111/j.1600-0404.2007.00863.x Copyright Ó 2007 The Authors Journal compilation Ó 2007 Blackwell Munksgaard ACTA NEUROLOGICA SCANDINAVICA Nguyen HV, Ngian V, Cordato D, Shen Q, Chan DKY. Quality of life in a random sample of community dwelling older patients with essential tremor. Acta Neurol Scand 2007: 116: 289–292. Ó 2007 The Authors Journal compilation Ó 2007 Blackwell Munksgaard. Study Objective – Nested case-control study aimed to assess the quality of life of community dwelling participants aged 65 years or over with newly diagnosed Essential Tremor (ET). Methods and Results – Thirty-two participants with newly diagnosed ET and 32 age and gender matched controls were administered the Rand-SF36 quality of life questionnaire. Medical co-morbidities were also assessed in the two groups. Results – Participants with ET had significantly lower scores in the physical function, role limitation because of physical function, role limitation as a result of emotional problem, pain, and energy ⁄ vitality subscales of the Rand-SF36 when compared with controls. Conclusions – Older patients with newly diagnosed ET have poorer quality of life than their community dwelling counterparts without ET. H. V. Nguyen 1 , V. Ngian 1 , D. Cordato 2 , Q. Shen 1 , D. K. Y. Chan 1,3 1 Department of Aged Care and Rehabilitation, Bankstown Hospital, Sydney, NSW, Australia; 2 Department of Neurology, Bankstown Hospital, Sydney, NSW, Australia; 3 University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia Key words: quality of life; essential tremor; Rand-SF36; elderly patients Huoung van Nguyen, Department of Aged Care and Rehabilitation, Bankstown Hospital, Sydney, NSW, Australia Tel.: +612 9722 8000 Fax: +612 9722 8275 e-mail: huongv_nguyen@yahoo.com Accepted for publication February 12, 2007 289