Introduction: Essential tremor is one of the most common movement disorders in the world, with prevalence in the general population of 0.4% to 3.9%.
Methods and outcomes: We conducted a systematic overview, aiming to answer the following clinical question: What are the effects of drug treatments in people with essential tremor of the hand? We searched: Medline, Embase, The Cochrane Library, and other important databases up to January 2014 (Clinical Evidence overviews are updated periodically; please check our website for the most up-to-date version of this overview).
Results: At this update, searching of electronic databases retrieved 56 studies. After deduplication and removal of conference abstracts, 31 records were screened for inclusion in the overview. Appraisal of titles and abstracts led to the exclusion of 18 studies and the further review of 13 full publications. Of the 13 full articles evaluated, two RCTs were added at this update. We performed a GRADE evaluation for 11 PICO combinations.
Conclusions: In this systematic overview, we categorised the efficacy for 13 interventions based on information about the effectiveness and safety of alprazolam, beta-blockers other than propranolol, botulinum A toxin-haemagglutinin complex, clonazepam, diazepam, gabapentin, levetiracetam, lorazepam, phenobarbital, primidone, propranolol, sodium oxybate, and topiramate.