If essential tremor is making it difficult to do daily tasks, Rush experts offer innovative, minimally invasive focused ultrasound treatment to improve your symptoms and quality of life.
What Is Essential Tremor?
Essential tremor is a neurological condition that causes involuntary shaking. These tremors usually affect your hands, arms, head and neck.
Essential tremor usually begins after age 40 and often worsens over time. Eventually, these tumors can make it difficult to drink from a cup, write and dress yourself.
Medications are often used for essential tremor treatment, but medication may become less effective at controlling your tremors over time. If you have essential tremor that is not responding to medication, high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) can help.
MR-guided focused ultrasound treats the areas in your brain causing tremors without surgery. This noninvasive treatment can improve shaking by 70% to 80%, drastically improving your quality of life.
Rush’s focused ultrasound team is the most experienced in Chicago. The team has performed more than 400 MR-guided focused ultrasound procedures.
How Focused Ultrasound Treats Essential Tremor
Focused ultrasound uses sound waves to target the thalamus, the area in your brain that regulates movement. During the procedure, high-intensity focused ultrasound is directed from different angles toward the targeted area in your brain.
Doctors use an MRI scanner during the procedure to plan, guide and target the treatment area. The focused ultrasound creates a small lesion in the brain without damaging the surrounding tissue. This reduces the intensity of tremors.
Ultrasound waves are strong enough to pass through tissue, meaning no incisions are needed.
Meet our focused ultrasound specialists
Benefits of Focused Ultrasound for Essential Tremor
- Focused ultrasound is a noninvasive procedure. You won’t need incisions, holes in your skull or electrodes. Unlike deep brain stimulation, you won’t need an implanted device.
- Focused ultrasound can greatly improve your quality of life. Most patients experience a 70% to 80% reduction in symptoms. You may no longer need ongoing medication for your tremors.
- Because focused ultrasound is noninvasive, you’ll be able to return to your normal activities quickly. You’ll be able to go home the same day.
Focused Ultrasound vs. Other Essential Temor Treatments
Focused ultrasound is a noninvasive treatment for essential tremor. Other common treatments include medication and deep brain stimulation.
Focused ultrasound vs. medication
- Medications are often used alone or in combination to treat tremors. These medications can cause side effects, like drowsiness and nausea.
- These medicines may become less effective over time.
- For severe tremors, or tremors that have stopped responding to medication, focused ultrasound can improve tremors.
Focused ultrasound vs. deep brain stimulation
- Deep brain stimulation is a common treatment for essential tremor that is not well controlled by medication. This surgery places electrodes in targeted areas in your brain. These electrodes are connected to a small device implanted under your skin, below your collarbone. This device sends electrical signals to areas in your brain responsible for tremors, improving your symptoms.
- Both deep brain stimulation and focused ultrasound can treat essential tremor. Focused ultrasound is a nonsurgical treatment and does not require an implanted device.
- Deep brain stimulation can treat both sides of your body at once. Focused ultrasound requires repeat procedures to treat tremors on both sides of your body.
Is Focused Ultrasound Right for Me?
You may be eligible for focused ultrasound if:
- You have been diagnosed with essential tremor
- Your tremor does not respond to medication
- You are 22 or older
- You are not claustrophobic
- You have reasonably good balance
Focused ultrasound may not be right for you if you have certain medical conditions or are unable to undergo an MRI. Your Rush doctor will help you choose the best treatment for you.
Choosing Rush for Essential Tremor Care
- Unmatched experience: Rush’s focused ultrasound experts have completed more than 400 procedures, more than any hospital in Chicago. Rush was the first health care facility in Illinois to offer focused ultrasound for essential tremor.
- Expert evaluation: The only way to know if focused ultrasound is right for you is to be evaluated by expert neurologists and neurosurgeons. Rush experts have performed hundreds of cases and have the expertise to develop the best treatment plan for you.
- Among the best in the U.S.: U.S. News & World Report ranks Rush University Medical Center among the best hospitals in the county for neurology and neurosurgery.
- Personalized care: Rush’s neurology experts will develop a personalized care plan for your essential tremor. They’ll work with you to find the treatment plan that best suits your symptoms, lifestyle and goals. If focused ultrasound is not right for you, Rush offers deep brain stimulation and other treatments for essential tremor.
- Innovative options for bilateral tremors: Bilateral focused ultrasound can treat tremors affecting both sides of your body. Rush is one of only a few places nationwide offering bilateral focused ultrasound, treating both affected sites in staged treatments.
- Convenient virtual visits: We provide consultations and second opinions via video visit. This option allows you to meet with and be evaluated by our focused ultrasound experts from home.
FAQs About Focused Ultrasound Treatment for Essential Tremor
Focused ultrasound uses powerful sound waves to target areas in your brain causing tremors. Your doctor will use MR imaging to find and target the right area. Then, they will direct powerful ultrasound waves at your brain. These waves create a small lesion without damaging nearby tissue. These lesions can lessen tremors.
Focused ultrasound is FDA-approved to treat essential tremor and Parkinsonian tremors. Serious complications are rare.
Focused ultrasound is a noninvasive treatment for essential tremor. You may be a good candidate for focused ultrasound if you have been diagnosed with essential tremor that is not controlled with medication. You must be 22 or older, have reasonably good balance and be able to tolerate several hours in an MRI machine.
Focused ultrasound and deep brain stimulation, or DBS, can both treat essential tremor. DBS uses a small device implanted below your collarbone to transmit electrical signals to the area in your brain controlling tremors. Focused ultrasound is an incisionless treatment for essential tremor, targeting specific areas in your brain with concentrated sound waves.
The most common side effects after focused ultrasound treatment are balance problems, numbness or tingling and headaches. These side effects typically go away in the weeks after the procedure.
Long-term side effects, including numbness and balance problems, are rare.
Focused ultrasound can treat essential tremor that affects both sides of your body. However, you will need a repeat procedure several months after your first focused ultrasound treatment to treat the opposite side.
Rush was the first hospital to offer focused ultrasound treatment in Chicago.
Led by neurosurgeon Sepehr Sani, MD, a focused ultrasound specialist, Rush has performed more than 400 focused ultrasound treatments, more than any hospital in Chicago and the surrounding area.
Call our office at (312) 563-2032 to schedule a consultation. You can also request an evaluation for MR-focused ultrasound online.
U.S. News & World Report ranked Rush University Medical Center among the best in the nation for neurology and neurosurgery care.