Word: parkinsonism
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Congratulations to Jeffrey Kluger for his article "Rewiring the Brain," about how deep-brain stimulation with electric current can help treat the tremors of Parkinson's disease, among other possible applications [Sept. 10]. I've had Parkinson's for nearly 12 years, so I know the crazy ways the incurable disease chips away at my brain's control center. Stories like yours give all of us with Parkinson's hope. With the help of a charismatic personal trainer at my local ymca fitness center, I've learned to face this awesome disease by fighting back to reclaim my balance...
Using DBS in severely brain-damaged patients may be a brand-new breakthrough, but the technology has already proved itself as a treatment for the tremors of Parkinson's disease, is nearing Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and is in clinical trials as a therapy for depression. Studies suggest it could also help control symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, dystonia--or paralytic muscle rigidity--epilepsy and even some addictions. "DBS is like a pacemaker for the brain," says Cleveland Clinic neurosurgeon Ali Rezai, who performed the operation on the brain-damaged man. "We pinpoint...
...something that counts as brain surgery, a DBS procedure can be a surprisingly relaxed thing. On a recent morning in Cleveland, Scott Stipp, 55, a businessman and Parkinson's patient, lies lightly sedated on an operating table while Rezai and a team of surgeons drill a hole about as large as a dime in the crown of his head. Rezai then threads a wire just 4 microns thick--or four-thousandths of a millimeter--into Stipp's brain. Guided in part by CT scans and in part by real-time readings of electrical activity that the probe encounters...
...Cleveland Clinic is one of 250 places in the U.S. that perform DBS for Parkinson's, and worldwide, close to 40,000 people have undergone the procedure. But the operation is by no means a cure. For one thing, it doesn't do much for end-stage Parkinson's symptoms like cripplingly bad posture and difficulty swallowing. More important, Parkinson's is a degenerative condition, which means that while DBS neutralizes tremors, the brain continues to deteriorate beneath the mask of the treatment. After a decade or so, electrical stimulation is not enough to contain the disease. Still, that...
...there is an exaggerated fear of prescribing estrogen, and women have a fear of taking estrogen because of all the bad news. Women are now coming off of it at too a young an age and having increased osteoporosis and increased heart problems and now potentially increased dementia or Parkinson...