Advanced surgical therapeutics

Deep brain stimulation

Deep brain stimulation is a surgical intervention used to treat movement disorders such as dystonia, essential tremor and Parkinson’s disease when the regimen of existing medications and the various rehabilitation strategies become less effective in managing symptoms.

Evaluation process

For patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD), an off-PD medication/on-PD medication motor examination is performed. The degree of impairment that patients experience when their medicines are not working or “off” time can be assessed by performing an examination of the patient after they’ve been off all PD medications for approximately 8 hours (“off score”). This is compared to the benefit that the patient gets when their medications are working or “on score” assessed after taking the PD medications.

Neuropsychological testing

This testing is used to look for signs of memory problems, depression or anxiety. It is important to identify these problems prior to surgery. Significant dementia rules out certain types of surgery. Depression and anxiety should be under treatment prior to surgery and may affect which nucleus is chosen for stimulation.

Medications

All Parkinson's and essential tremor medications are stopped at midnight the night before surgery.

Learn more about deep brain stimulation.

Additional resources

Additional therapeutics

Focused Ultrasound

Focused ultrasound is an incisionless treatment for patients with movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor.

Learn more about our focused ultrasound program.

Make an appointment

Please call (804) 360-4669 to schedule an appointment.