Hand Tremor Test

By Murat Şahin · Updated November 11, 2026 · How we test

How the steady hand test works

In the middle of the test area there is a dot inside a dashed ring. Unlike the finger tapping test, which measures how fast your finger moves, this one measures how still it stays.

1. Press on the dot and keep pressing. On a phone, use your fingertip and hold your arm off the table. With a mouse, press and hold the left button.
2. Hold as still as you can for 10 seconds. The ring turns solid while you are inside it and red when you drift outside. A countdown runs at the bottom.
3. If you let go before the 10 seconds are up, the round is cancelled and you start again from the dot.

While you hold, a line draws your movement magnified four times around your own average position, so even tiny wobbles become visible. Reset clears the area.

How the score is calculated

We sample the position of your finger or pointer on every screen frame and compute three things:

• Average sway: the root-mean-square distance, in screen pixels, between each sample and your own average position. It measures how much you wobbled, not how well you aimed at the dot.
• Time inside ring: the share of samples within the ring, which has a radius of 36 pixels.
• Total movement: the length of the whole path your finger or cursor travelled, in pixels.

The steadiness score is 100 minus 6 points per pixel of average sway, never below 0, multiplied by your time inside the ring. An average sway of 2 px inside the ring the whole time gives 88; a sway of 5 px gives 70.

This is a relative score. Screen pixels are not millimetres: the same sway in pixels is a different physical distance on a phone, a laptop and a large monitor. Touchscreens report the centre of a soft fingertip, and mice smooth and scale your hand movement. Only compare scores made on the same device, in the same way.

What the score can and cannot show

Everyone has a small, fast tremor, called physiological tremor. Normally you cannot see it, but it becomes more visible when you are tired, anxious, cold, after strong coffee, after hard exercise or when you hold your arm out for a long time. In the classification used by movement disorder specialists (Bhatia and colleagues, 2018), a visible version of this normal tremor is called enhanced physiological tremor.

A phone or mouse cannot tell what kind of tremor you have, how fast it is, or why. Doctors assess tremor by watching it at rest, while holding a posture and during movement (a distinction set out in the Movement Disorder Society's 1998 consensus statement), often with tasks such as drawing a spiral or pouring water, and they take a medical history. That is far beyond what a 10-second browser test can do.

Not a tremor diagnosis. A low score does not mean something is wrong, and a high score does not rule anything out. If you notice shaking that bothers you, is getting worse, appears on one side only, shows up when your hand is at rest, or comes with other symptoms such as stiffness, slowness or problems with walking or speech, see a doctor or a neurologist.

What affects your steadiness

• Caffeine. Coffee, energy drinks and some medicines can make a fine tremor more noticeable.
• Fatigue and sleep. Your hands are often less steady after a bad night or at the end of a long day.
• Stress and adrenaline. Nerves before a presentation or after a scare can make your hands shake.
• Recent exercise. Tired muscles, especially after gripping or lifting, tremble more for a while.
• Support and posture. A resting wrist is much steadier than an outstretched arm. With a mouse on a desk, most people score high because the table does the work. Standing still on one leg is a different kind of steadiness, which the balance test measures.

Tips for a fair comparison

1. Use the same device and the same hand each time.
2. Pick one posture and keep it: for example, phone flat on the table, elbow off the table, fingertip on the dot.
3. Test at a similar time of day and note whether you had coffee.
4. Do two or three rounds and compare the best, not a single try.

Limits of this online test

Browsers report touch and pointer positions at the screen's refresh rate, often 60 times a second, which is enough to see sway but not to analyse tremor frequency. Some phones smooth touch positions, and some mice and trackpads ignore very small movements entirely. This test is a self-check for curiosity and practice, not a medical device. Holding still is also not the same as hitting a target while you move; the aim test measures that.

More tests of hand control and speed are on the reflex and speed tests page.

Sources

• Bhatia KP, Bain P, Bajaj N, et al. Consensus Statement on the classification of tremors from the task force on tremor of the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society. Movement Disorders. 2018;33(1):75–87.
• Deuschl G, Bain P, Brin M, and an Ad Hoc Scientific Committee. Consensus statement of the Movement Disorder Society on tremor. Movement Disorders. 1998;13(Suppl 3):2–23.

Frequently asked questions