ArticleScientific reports2019
Mechanical vibration does not systematically reduce the tremor in essential tremor patients.
Article in Scientific reports, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 20 citations in OpenAlex.
- Essential Tremor and Digital Biomarkers: A Scoping Review Using the TRACE Framework to Map Readiness for Clinical Trials and Routine Practice.Tremor and other hyperkinetic movements (New York, N.Y.) · 2026Article
- Current and Emerging Therapeutic Targets for Essential Tremor: A Critical Appraisal of Recent Preclinical and Clinical Studies.Movement disorders clinical practice · 2025Review
- On the Effect of Vibrotactile Stimulation in Essential Tremor.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- A Wearable Vibratory Device (The Emma Watch) to Address Action Tremor in Parkinson Disease: Pilot Feasibility Study.JMIR biomedical engineering · 2023Article
- Review
- Peripheral electrical stimulation to reduce pathological tremor: a review.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation · 2021Review
- A Review on Wearable Technologies for Tremor Suppression.Frontiers in neurology · 2021Review
- The Validation of Tremor-Cancelling Technologies Needs a Multidisciplinary Consensus Statement.Tremor and other hyperkinetic movements (New York, N.Y.) · 2020Article
- Survey-based identification of design requirements and constraints for a wearable tremor suppression device.Journal of rehabilitation and assistive technologies engineeringArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Essential tremor (ET) is a major cause of disability and is not effectively managed in half of the patients. We investigated whether mechanical vibration could reduce tremor in ET by selectively recruiting afferent pathways. We used piezoelectric actuators to deliver vibratory stimuli to the hand and forearm during long trials (4 min), while we monitored the tremor using inertial sensors. We analyzed the effect of four stimulation strategies, including different constant and variable vibration frequencies, in 18 ET patients. Although there was not a clear homogeneous response to vibration across patients and strategies, in most cases (50-72%) mechanical vibration was associated with an increase in the amplitude of their tremor. In contrast, the tremor was reduced in 5-22% of the patients, depending on the strategy. However, these results are hard to interpret given the intrinsic variability of the tremor: during equally long trials without vibration, the tremor changed significantly in 67% of the patients (increased in 45%; decreased in 22%). We conclude that mechanical vibration of the limb does not have a systematic effect on tremor in ET. Moreover, the observed intrinsic variability of the tremor should be taken into account when designing future experiments to assess tremor in ET and how it responds to any intervention.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.