Acknowledgement
We would like to thank Dr Tra Mi Phan, Movement Disorders, Medtronic Neurological Europe, for her contributions to this section.
What are the benefits of DBS? DBS can provide hours of relief from the debilitating slowness, stiffness and/or shaking of Parkinson's disease every day. It can also reduce the duration of the abnormal, involuntary movements (dyskinesias) that are a common side effect of Parkinson's medications.
In clinical studies, neurostimulation leads were implanted in the subthalamic nucleus (STN) or internal globus pallidus (GPi). "On" time (periods of good motor function and symptom relief) increased by an average of more than 6 hours per day 12 months after surgery.
DBS can provide a better quality of life: a recent clinical study compared 2 groups of patients with advanced PD. One group received DBS of the STN combined to medication, and the other group received best conventional medical management alone. After 6 months, people who receive a strategy combining STN-DBS to medication benefited from a strong improvement of their quality of life and motor symptoms, whereas the other group did not. These patients initially needed help in their everyday life, and after receiving DBS, most of them found their quality of life improved to the level of mobile people without balance problems despite PD.
If a cure for Parkinson's disease is developed, the therapy can be turned off and the system can be removed. In addition, DBS is adjustable. This means that the stimulation can be changed over time to best match the need for symptom control. To adjust the stimulation, a physician uses an external programmer that communicates non-invasively with the neurostimulator through radio frequency.
Further information about Deep Brain Stimulation and Medtronic Activa® Therapy can be found on the Medtronic website (www.medtronic.co.uk)
