Clinical and Electrophysiological Characteristics of Post-stroke Tremor

Seo, Man-Wook; Kim, Young Hyun

Ann Clin Neurophysiol > 2001 ;3(2) > Article

Ann Clin Neurophysiol. 2001; 3(2): 128-135.

Man-Wook Seo, and Young Hyun Kim

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

ABSTRACT

Background : Tremor is uncommon manifestation of stroke. Therefore a few cases have been reported until now. There is still uncertainly about the characteristics of post-stroke tremor. Furthermore the pathogenesis and responsible structures of post-stroke tremor are not precisely known. We have recently experienced 34 cases of post-stroke tremor for the past 6 years. We analysed the clinical features and electrophysiologic findings of post-stroke tremor to evaluate the general characteristics and to analogize the possible pathogenetic mechanisms of post-stroke tremot. Methods : The clinical characteristics of post-stroke tremor were summarized in according to the onset time, involved body parts, types, tremor frequencies, neuroradiologic findings, and associated symptoms. The tremor frequencies were recorded by using a gyroscope. The spectral analysis of tremor frequencies were done automatically with Motus I software. Results : Tremor onset were remarkably varied. Some patients showed a tremor appearing at the onset of a stroke and other patients showed delayed-onset tremor 10 years after a stroke. Tremor frequencies were also much varied. The range of hand tremor frequencies were from 1.5 to 12Hz. Lesions were found in 31 cases (infarction 27, hemorrhage 4) on neuroimaging. In the cases of cerebral infarctions, 7 cases showed multiple small vessel disease and 20 cases showed cerebral vessel lesions. The most commonly involved cerebral vessel lesion was the middle cerebral artery territory. Several different clinical patterns of post-stroke tremor were identified. Conclusions : There are some evidences fro the data summarized here to suggest that several pathogenetic mechanisms including central oscillators could be involved for the development of tremors and that tremor generating neural circuits.

Key words: Stroke, Tremor