DBS, or Deep Brain Stimulation, has been an option for treating Parkinson’s disease since the late 1980s. Basically, surgeons drill two holes in your skull and insert tiny wires into the brain; the wires electronically stimulate the part of the brain that controls movement but has gone kaput because of PD. The wires run under your skin, down your neck, to a battery-operated device that’s also under your skin near your collarbone. After the surgery, a doctor works with you to tweak the electric pulses that the battery-operated device sends to your brain. Ideally, the procedure reduces or eliminates many of your Parkinson’s symptoms, although you must still probably take your Parky medication, too.
The New York Times just ran an article reporting that doctors are now performing DBS surgery for severe depression. This is a huge step forward from the days of lobotomies, an early form of brain surgery that was widely (and indiscriminately) used, and often resulted in dramatically horrible results.
Here’s a downright scary video that accompanies the article. (Note: the scary part concerns lobotomies. The DBS section, towards the end, is quite positive.)
I know that some Parkies have been helped by DBS, but others had the operation and are still waiting for their doctor to tweak yet again the electrical pulses because they’ve not gotten sufficient benefit yet.
To review DBS in general:
Here’s a rather startling public service announcement about DBS for Parkinson’s that I posted about a year ago. (To read the background on this dramatic PSA, click here: bingo!)
And then there’s the latest update I could find about Greg Grindley, who in October 2015 famously had his DBS surgery broadcast on live TV with Bryant Gumbel as the show’s anchor. Gumbel even interviewed Greg while he (Greg, not Gumbel) was on the operating table and surgeons were simultaneously inserting wires into the two holes in Greg’s head.
Last November, Parkinson’s Life interviewed Greg about his life one year post-operation. The article’s opening paragraph includes this line:
One year on, Greg, 50, has experienced dramatic changes to his life and now looks forward to enjoying the finer things – like dancing with his wife again.
Longer quote from the article:
Post-surgery how did your life improve?
GG: My medication has dropped dramatically, which means the severe dyskinesia has gone. I went from 1,650mg to 600mg of Sinemet a day. I was taking meds every two hours, from 6am to 10pm. Now I’m down to three times a day, that’s it! I can walk without a cane now, as my balance issues were caused by the dyskinesia, not the Parkinson’s. I’ve put on weight, because before my body was constantly in tremor mode, which would cause my body to overheat and sweat – I actually get cold now, something that never happened before! It hasn’t fixed my fatigue, but I can live with that.
Way to go, Greg!
Here, once again, is a YouTube video where a Parky who had successful DBS surgery sits with his doctor and shows how “normal” he is with the monitor turned on, and how he loses control when he turns it off.
On the flip side, however, the surgery may not always work as well as it should. A friend of mine who had DBS has had lingering problems. As she wrote in one email:
I’m still suffering from programming settings and yesterday I learned that in the surgery, the lead was placed one millimeter off, which causes my left foot to drag. They’re trying to take care of that with medication. And I did sign all kinds of papers saying that I knew there were no guarantees with the surgery. The doctors said that I could go through the surgery again (no way!), but again, there would be no guarantee. So I am grateful for the fact that I don’t have tremors or dyskinesia (involuntary movements).
Finally, there’s always helpful info at the Michael J. Fox Foundation website:
- Click here for an hour-long webcast about DBS.
- Click here to download an FAQ booklet which answers many questions about DBS.
And the National Parkinson Foundation has this page: click!
The World Parkinson Coalition has a huge list of Parkinson’s disease organizations in dozens of countries around the world: click!
There’s also an organization (dbs4pd) devoted exclusively to DBS for Parkies: click!
And of course, dozens of videos on YouTube: click!
One more “finally”: some trivia!
The Wikipedia disambiguation page for “DBS” includes these other uses for the initials:
- Aston-Martin DBS, a 1967-1972 automobile model
- Dried blood spot testing, a form of bio analysis
- d.b.s., a Canadian punk rock band
- DBS Bank, based in Singapore
- Doctor of Biblical Studies, a doctorate in applied theology
- Dragon Ball Super, an anime series
Photo at top of the post is from Wikipedia: By Hellerhoff – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13785677
