Neurosurgery webinar on essential tremor

Essential tremor is a shaking disorder that shows up when people try to use their hands, voice, or head, and Mass General Brigham neurosurgeons are using an April 16 webinar to explain how it is treated. (massgeneral.org) (resources.insightec.com) The April 16 online session lists functional neurosurgeons G. Rees Cosgrove and John D. Rolston as speakers, with an agenda covering treatment options, who qualifies for which procedure, what treatment day looks like, and a live question-and-answer session. (resources.insightec.com) Mass General Brigham’s neurosurgery residency says its training program runs seven years and rotates residents through subspecialties including functional neurosurgery, the branch that treats brain-circuit disorders such as tremor with procedures rather than tumor or trauma surgery. (massgeneralbrigham.org) Essential tremor is one of the most common movement disorders, and a 2024 JAMA review estimated it affects about 7 million people in the United States. A global review in *Neuroepidemiology* put worldwide prevalence near 0.9%. (jamanetwork.com) (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) Doctors usually start with medication, but some patients keep having disabling tremor when they eat, write, or hold a cup. For those patients, surgery or device-based treatment becomes part of the discussion. (essentialtremor.org) (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) At Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the movement disorders service says its neuromodulation clinic offers both deep brain stimulation and magnetic resonance imaging-guided focused ultrasound ablation for tremor, Parkinson disease, dystonia, and related conditions. The clinic says it works with neurosurgery and with John Rolston’s Mapping and Engineering Neural Dynamics laboratory. (brighamandwomens.org) Deep brain stimulation works like a pacemaker for brain circuits: surgeons place electrodes in a target deep in the brain and connect them to an implanted pulse generator. Focused ultrasound aims many sound waves through the skull to heat a tiny spot in the brain without an incision. (brighamandwomens.org) (massgeneralbrigham.org) Mass General Brigham says focused ultrasound for essential tremor is an outpatient procedure, and its patient guide says the United States Food and Drug Administration approved the approach in 2016 for some patients whose symptoms did not improve with medication. (massgeneralbrigham.org) The department has run similar education before: Massachusetts General Hospital posted a June 26, 2024 virtual webinar in which neurosurgeon Jeffrey Schweitzer discussed treatment options for essential tremor and Parkinson’s disease. The April 16 event extends that teaching effort into the merged Mass General Brigham neurosurgery program. (massgeneral.org) (massgeneralbrigham.org) For medical students and residents, the practical takeaway is simple: a hand tremor can lead from clinic diagnosis to a choice between pills, implanted stimulation, or incision-free ultrasound, and the April 16 webinar is built around that pathway. (resources.insightec.com) (brighamandwomens.org)