AUTHOR=Datta Abhigyan , Batra Nitya , Pandey Sanjay 

TITLE=Tremor in Writer’s Cramp Patients: A Retrospective Study

JOURNAL=Dystonia

VOLUME=1

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontierspartnerships.org/journals/dystonia/articles/10.3389/dyst.2022.10075

DOI=10.3389/dyst.2022.10075

ISSN=2813-2106

ABSTRACT=<p><bold>Background:</bold> Tremor is one of the important motor phenotypes of dystonia, however, there is a lacuna in the literature regarding the occurrence of tremor in task-specific dystonia such as writer’s cramp (WC).</p><p><bold>Aims:</bold> To delineate the demographic and clinical characteristics of tremor in WC patients.</p><p><bold>Methods:</bold> This is a detailed chart review of 105 patients of WC who were classified as WC with dystonic action tremor (WCT+) (<italic>n</italic> = 39; 37.1%) and WC without tremor (WCT-) (<italic>n</italic> = 66; 53.9%).</p><p><bold>Results:</bold> The mean age of patients was 41.10 ± 14.02 years in the WCT + group and 36.40 ± 14.66 years in the WCT-group. Males were more commonly affected (94.9% in WCT+ and 84.8% in WCT-). The mean duration of disease was significantly higher in WCT + as compared to WCT- (4.16 ± 4.48 years vs. 2.57 ± 2.81 years, <italic>p</italic> = 0.024). One-third of our patients (29.52%; <italic>n</italic> = 31) were students but, and the majority of them were classified as WCT- (80.64%, <italic>n</italic> = 25, <italic>p</italic> = 0.01). However, tremor was present in all the three doctors in our cohort with WC (<italic>p</italic> = 0.03). The motor overflow to the elbow and shoulder was significantly associated with the presence of tremor (46.1% of WCT + vs. 15.2% of WCT-patients, <italic>p</italic> = 0.001). Statistically, there were no significant differences between WCT+ and WCT-patients regarding the presence of complex WC (dystonia during other activities as well) (<italic>p</italic> = 0.976), mirror dystonia (<italic>p</italic> = 0.211), and finger flexion/extension abnormalities (<italic>p</italic> = 0.111).</p><p><bold>Conclusion:</bold> The presence of tremor in WC was associated with a longer duration of disease and the presence of motor overflow.</p>