Background. While social anxiety has been reported among essential tremor (ET) patients, very little is known about the relation between self-report measures of social anxiety, tremor severity and disability, and cognition. Methods. Sixty-three individuals diagnosed with ET took part in a comprehensive study examining neurocognition and behavioral functioning. A psychiatric diagnostic interview, three social anxiety questionnaires, and an idiographic-based behavioral assessment to pinpoint anxiety provoking situations and related distress were completed. Results. Thirty percent of the participants met diagnostic criteria for social anxiety disorder (SAD). Social anxiety questionnaires were negligibly related to tremor severity and disability. Idiographic behavioral assessment of subjective distress was moderately related to resting tremor severity and disability and strongly related to social anxiety questionnaires scores. Only one cognitive variable was related to tremor severity. Conclusions. These findings suggest that (a) self-report measures of social anxiety with ET patients may underestimate distress; (b) emphasis on tremor severity may be misleading; (c) tremor disability may be a more sensitive and functional measure related to cognition and effect; (d) SAD is wide spread and does not appear to be related to dysregulated executive function; and (e) development of an ET-specific measure of social anxiety is called for.

Acceptability ratings of medication or Behavioral Relaxation Training (BRT), for general anxiety disorder (GAD) co-occurring with Parkinson's Disease (PD) were obtained from younger (n = 79) and older (n = 54) adults. Participants read a case description of an older adult with PD and comorbid GAD followed by a description of BRT or medication presented in counterbalanced fashion and then provided acceptability ratings. A two (younger, older adult) x two (medication, BRT) mixed factorial ANOVA was performed with AARP scores as the dependent variable. Results replicate and extend earlier research indicating that behavioral and cognitive behavioral treatments for older adults are more acceptable than medication. Moreover, the effect of age cohort, demographic characteristics and psychological comorbidity did not affect acceptability ratings.