Essential tremor and depression.

Introduction: Depression and neuropsychiatric disorders in individuals with essential tremor (ET) are not well characterized in the literature.

Methods: We compared 104 ET subjects with 481 non-ET controls involved in the Arizona Study of Aging and Neurodegenerative Disorders. An analysis of baseline depression scales and neuropsychiatric inventory (NPI) was done between the two groups. Comparisons were made additionally within the ET group based on tremor severity, duration of tremor and age of onset.

Results: There were no significant differences among each of the scales between the ET and non-ET groups. There were no significant differences in the ET group above and below the median tremor duration. Additionally, no differences were found in the ET group based on objective measures of tremor severity, age of onset, or those with subjectively distressing tremor compared with those without.

Conclusion: There were no significant differences in depressive symptoms between ET and non-ET groups. Furthermore, no correlation was found between depressive symptoms in ET groups based on tremor severity, duration, or age of onset.