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N Biary

Publications and source records attributed to N Biary.

26 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Kinetic predominant essential tremor: successful treatment with clonazepam.

Fourteen patients with marked kinetic tremors of long duration but no other major neurologic signs are described. A positive family history of essential tremor, mild postural tremor, and tremor suppression with alcohol suggest that the condition is a variant of essential tremor. Kinetic tremors had a frequency of 3.5 to 6.0 Hz and an alternating EMG pattern. Propranolol caused improvement in some patients, but clonazepam treatment resulted in tremor suppression in all patients. Kinetic tremor without cerebellar signs is a subtype of essential tremor with pharmacologic responsiveness to clonazepam.

Aged

Disability in essential tremor: effect of treatment.

We studied 18 patients with essential tremor for difficulty with handwriting, drinking, eating, fine manipulations, and embarrassment. Propranolol and primidone reduced the amplitude of both postural and kinetic tremor. Handwriting, drinking, and eating were improved with therapy, but fine manipulations and motor performance on tapping and pegboard tests were unaltered. Embarrassment remained unchanged. Essential tremor is not a benign condition; disability can be only partly reversed with drug therapy.

Aged

Handedness and essential tremor.

In patients with essential tremor, a direct relationship was found between hand dominance and severity of hand tremor. A higher incidence of left-handedness was found in patients with essential tremor than in controls.

Adolescent

Effect of alcohol on dystonia.

An intravenous infusion of a 250-ml, 10% ethanol solution decreased dystonic scores in five of seven patients with spasmodic torticollis, but had no effect in patients with Meige syndrome, tardive dystonia, or generalized torsion dystonia. Alcohol may temporarily decrease some forms of dystonia.

Aged

Metoprolol compared with propranolol in the treatment of essential tremor.

We analyzed effects of metoprolol tartrate and propranolol hydrochloride on 23 patients with essential tremor. Tremor was assessed by patient self-evaluation, clinical scoring, and tremorgrams. Ten of 20 patients had tremor reduction with propranolol. Metoprolol decreased tremor in 13 of 23 patients, including three patients with asthma in whom propranolol had caused respiratory distress. Adverse reactions were infrequent. Individual patients either responded to both propranolol and metoprolol or to neither drug. Patient age, duration of tremor, tremor frequency, family history, or response to intravenous ethyl alcohol did not distinguish responders from nonresponders.

Adult

Effect of alcohol on tremors: comparison with propranolol.

Intravenous administration of alcohol decreased postural essential tremor but not parkinsonian resting or cerebellar intention tremor. The response to alcohol infusion occurred in all 15 patients studied, whereas only 11 of the 15 had a response to propranolol therapy. Furthermore, the response to ethanol was greater than that due to propranolol.

Adult

Estrogen treatment of dyskinetic disorders.

Estrogen have been reported in animal studies to both enhance and block central dopaminergic activity and in one clinical report to improve tardive dyskinesia. In the present study estrogen (Premarin, 2.5 mg per day) administration caused varying degrees of improvement in less than one-third of 21 patients with chorea due to Huntington's disease and tardive dyskinesia and had no effect in eight patients with dystonia. Estrogens appear to have an antidopaminergic effect in humans but poses only limited efficacy in the treatment of dyskinetic disorders.

Adult