Essential Tremor

I read with interest Stephanie Stephens' article on essential tremor (ET) in the February/March issue of Neurology Now. There seems to be little information published about this disorder. In fact, when I was diagnosed with ET, I had never heard of it.

It was my primary care physician who first diagnosed my shaking hands as ET, later confirmed by a neurologist. I had thought that it was the beginning of Parkinson's disease.

At first, it was disconcerting to say the least. I thought, if this stuff is so essential, why doesn't everyone have it? As your article intimated, you can learn to cope. You learn not to fill the glass and avoid having soup at a restaurant, little things like that. You learn that you can have fun with it, withdraw, or fall someplace in between. I chose to have fun.

As faculty moderator at the college where I worked, I was in charge of running the faculty meetings. In order to assure the new faculty that I was not nervous about my responsibilities, I would announce at the first faculty meeting of each semester that I had a neurologic disorder called essential tremor and that is what caused my hands to shake. - Joseph D. Considine, Greenland, NH

Neurobics

Before my neurosurgery in 1998, I had to periodically undergo psychological testing. "Mental juggling" games—such as the ones in Neurobics from the February/March issue, were a part of the rehabilitation process.

To this day, I find that I can still locate words in order by relating a given word to another object or word. I play this game daily when I have a couple of free hours. The more I do it, the better I get. - Anna Victoria Reich

I'm 82 years old, and it took me about 20 minutes to finish Neurobics (perfect score). But when I turned to page 15 to check my answers I discovered an error. Under the answer for question #4 "kiwi" is out of place—it should be in second place, not fourth.

Love your magazine. I was especially interested in the article on essential tremor, which I have. - Ronald H. Harshaw, Oklahoma City, OK

Dealing with Drooling

Amy Paturel's article on drooling (February/March 2011) was comprehensive and generally accurate. I only wanted to make a small correction to Dr. Robert Miller's statement, "If you tuck in your chin when you're swallowing, for example, you'll open up the airway, making it easier for fluid and food to go down." Tucking the chin when swallowing actually helps to close off the airway, protecting it from whatever is swallowed. - M. C. Estlack, Speech-Language Pathologist, Findlay, OH

THE EDITOR RESPONDS: Thank you for pointing that out. Yes, the chin-tuck position narrows the airway entrance and reduces the risk of aspiration.