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Pacemaker for the Brain

Parkinson's Implant Yields Remarkable Results

Houston, Texas, April 30, 2003 -- It's like being a prisoner in your own body. That's how many Parkinson's patients describe their experience with the disease. Primarily impairing motor skills, Parkinson's traditionally causes patients to have extreme swings in movement control, making it difficult to perform routine daily activities that most people take for granted, such as bathing, dressing and eating.

Now there is new hope for those suffering from the debilitating ailment that afflicts an estimated one million Americans, and it's available in Houston at Memorial Hermann Southeast Hospital. Neurosurgeon James Gregory Bonnen, M.D., who is on staff at the hospital, has performed more than 100 surgeries using an innovative new procedure. One of the most significant advances in the treatment of Parkinson's disease in more than 30 years, Activa® Parkinson's Control Therapy from Medtronic is Dr. Bonnen's procedure of choice for his patients with essential tremor, which affects the thalamus region of the brain, and Parkinson's in which the subthalamic nucleus region is affected.

Bonnen explains that two surgically implanted medical devices, similar to cardiac pacemakers, deliver electrical stimulation to precisely targeted areas within each side of the brain. Continuous stimulation of these areas blocks the signals that cause the disabling motor symptoms of the disease. The stimulation is adjustable, and its effects are reversible. As a result, many patients achieve greater control over their body movements.

"For those patients who have impairment in a region of the brain known as the globus pallidus, we still must use a technique called ablation, where we destroy diseased tissue and cells in the brain that cause the Parkinson's symptoms," says Bonnen. "But the FDA's recent approval in the last year of deep brain stimulation provides a wonderful alternative for so many of my other patients. Like ablation, this high-frequency stimulation renders useless those areas of the brain that cause the debilitating symptoms yet, unlike ablation, it is reversible and adjustable. Once I surgically implant the device, a neurologist adjusts it in subsequent office visits to suit the individual patient's needs."

According to the Michael J. Fox Foundation and the Parkinson's Action Network, direct health-related expenses, indirect disability expenses and lost productivity for Parkinson's patients in the United States amount to $25 billion annually. Patients spend $1,000 to $6,000 per year on medications, alone. With the new therapy, Bonnen says patients are able to decrease their medications. One of only two neurosurgeons to perform this surgery in Houston, Bonnen is the only one outside the Texas Medical Center who performs this life-altering procedure.

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