Vanderbilt Deep Brain Stimulation Special - Part 4/4

You've seen how deep brain stimulation changes parkinson's patients lives, but they aren't the only patients benefiting. Mark Barrett isn't throwing a tantrum he has a rare form of a movement disorder called the dystonia. It causes painful uncontrollable muscle contractions. Here he is trying to do something we take for granted, walking. It was pretty much impossible That's a Dystonia comes in many forms it can be focal involving this one's head or neck or eyes segmental involving once arm and head for example or generalized involving the whole body In Mark's case, he has primary generalized dystonia. That's a genetic form. Treatment depends on the type of dystonia. Focal dystonia can often be managed with injections of botswana tops that's harder to do in patients who have segmental or generalized dystonia such as Mark has. Mark was on fifty-eight pills a day to control is movements It didn't work. I had to have help constantly. Someone always had to help me do simple things of brushing my teeth or taking a shower or anything. and all the pills that I took made me sleep all the time, so I basically wore diapers and didn't get up to eat or anything. I didn't really want to live very much anymore. because I didn't think it'd ever go away or that I 'd ever be able to live a normal life. Mark's only hope, DBS, his last treatment option at age thirteen he would be Vanderbilt's first pediatric patient to ever receive it. Could neurosurgeons find the targets causing his violent muscle contractions? here's Mark walking down the hall weeks after surgery. Unreal, I didn't think I'd ever be able to walk down the hall again. Mark's completely off all medications thanks to DBS, something common for dystonia patients after surgery So no more debilitating drug side effects like sleepiness marks grateful he can now focus on his future doing things normal tees do. I work two part time job delivering pizza and going to college at Davenport University. I get to talk to people and socialize Do my homework and when i get that good grade then it makes me happy. DBS can also help patients with another movement disorder called essential tremor. It affects about five million Americans making it more common than parkinson's disease. Essential tremor is an action tremor, it's a tremor of the hands voice or head At complete rest, the tremor is gone but then you try to use your hands that's when the tremor is activated. You can imagine that would interfere with activities such as drinking from a glass, eating soup with a spoon, handwriting. If the tremor is interfering with daily activities and significantly with daily activities and is not controlled with medication or the medications are causing intolerable side-effects then one should consider being evaluated for deep brain stimulation and like in dystonia, essential tremor patients may also come off all medications after DBS So if DBS can help patients with movement disorders, what about patients with psychiatric disorders? Vanderbilt neurosurgeon doctor Joseph Neimat was involved in Canadian studies looking at DBS as a treatment for depression when traditional medications were no longer affective. The sixty percent of those patients had a response where they're symptoms decreased substantially more than fifty percent of what they'd had before and if you speak to those patients, most of them had real benefits. They went back benefit. Most of those precious went back to work, resumed their normal life. One person, I think, started her own business, so ,you know, for some of these patients, it was very exciting and we're still hoping to understand what works in some patients and not others. Doctor Neimat hopes to answer that question and many more involving TBS and how it may help patients with the everything from depression obsessive-compulsive disorder to Tourette syndrome In the near future, Vanderbilt will start studies and be only one other handful of centers around the world doing this type of leading-edge research. We're very excited that we're moving into that phase in the last half hour you've seen how the lives of patients with parkinson's disease and other movement disorders are being improved patients are not only regaining their lives but their dignity through treatments like deep brain stimulation at vanderbilt for more information on Vanderbilt studies call (615) 936- 8225 or visit Vanderbiltdbs.com I'm sylvia Castañeda. We'll see you next time.