CEREBROSPINALECTOMY
Driver: "What kind of doctor?" Me: "Neurology." Driver: "Oh — look at this." Driver: [takes both hands off the wheel to show me] Me: "I can see it. Please put one back." Almost all of tremor diagnosis is a question of when: at rest with the limb fully supported, while holding a posture against gravity, or only while reaching for a target. Those three answers point at three different parts of the nervous system. None of them can be sorted at forty miles an hour. Send this to whoever gets a free consult every time they say what they do for a living. Send this to whoever gets a free consult every time they say what they do.
EXPLAINED (ACCURACY-CHECKED)
Tremor is classified first by activation condition — rest tremor (limb fully supported against gravity), postural tremor (maintaining a position against gravity), and kinetic/intention tremor (during goal-directed movement) — and these categories map onto different underlying disorders and localizations.
Movement Disorder Society consensus classification of tremor by activation condition (rest / postural / kinetic). Core, non-controversial phenomenology.
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Reprint anywhere, non-commercially, with attribution to cerebrospinalectomy.com. We punch at specialties, the system, and ourselves — never at patients.