Electric
shocks can ease Parkinson's: Study
By: Unknown Author
The Times of India, August 5, 2002
SYDNEY:
A new study has revealed that symptoms of Parkinson's disease can be
relieved by a treatment, known as subthalamic stimulation, which requires
bombarding of nerve cells with electric shocks from wires implanted in the
brain of the patient.
Robert
Iansek, the director of the movement disorders program at Melbourne's
Elsternwick Private Hospital, said subthalamic stimulation, had been shown
to relieve the symptoms of Parkinson's at an advanced stage.
In
an operation performed under local anaesthesia while the patient is awake,
electrodes are inserted through the skull and deep into the brain. The
wires are linked to a pacemaker-like
device
embedded under the collarbone, delivering a constant flow of between 130
and 180 electrical pulses a second, according to the study.
Professor
Iansek's study of 14 patients, published in the Medical Journal of
Australia, is the first by an Australian team.
However,
the treatment, first devised in France in the early 1990s, involves high
risks because of the difficulty of the surgical procedure. Professor
Iansek said.
"It
has quite a high complication rate because you have to put a long probe
into the brain to map it, and you might have to do it two or three
times," he added
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