Hm. Parkinson's patients sometimes have tremors, but all tremors are not Parkinson's. The physiological explanation of Parkinson's "firing off wrong signals t

Hm. Parkinson's patients sometimes have tremors, but all tremors are not Parkinson's. The physiological explanation of Parkinson's "firing off wrong signals to muscles" is not correct. Parkinson's disease is defined primarily by bradykinesia and limb rigidity - the difficulty of the motor planning part of the brain processing motor commands to the motor cortex. Much of the disability in Parkinson's disease comes from a patient's brain not being able to come up with motor commands fast enough, resulting in wooden, statue-like movement and gait instability (i.e. coming up with motor commands fast enough to maintain upright balance). Of interest - while tremors (i.e. essential tremors, action tremors, rubral tremors) can limit function, the interesting part of Parkinsonian tremors are that the vast majority of them are "resting tremors," i.e. they go away with action and thus are not the limiting factor of writing. Most Parkinson's patients complain, rather, of the bradykinesia (motor command issues) causing micrographia, or excessively small and unreadable handwriting. Anyway, I am not sure what diagnosis Emma actually has - it may be what is known as a "tremor predominant" Parkinson's disease (which overlaps a bit with essential tremor, another neurological movement disorder). It may very well be essential tremor. Or it may be a dystonic tremor which responds, bizarrely, to weird sensory cues, i.e. "gestes antagonistes". If the watch with its vibrating counterweights works for her, great. For most of our Parkinson's patients, it doesn't solve their main issue which is the inability to move or walk, or at least do so well. Not to mention the cognitive deficits in Parkinson's disease which is a whole other can of worms. Of note: Parkinsonian and essential tremors respond extremely well to implantable deep brain stimulators...that is a whole other topic as well.