Our Parkinson's Place: New surgery tames Parkinson's, Tremors, OCD

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Wednesday, July 20, 2016

New surgery tames Parkinson's, Tremors, OCD

July 20, 2016

SPRINGFIELD, MA (WGGB/WSHM)

For those that have loved ones with Parkinson’s Disease and Essential Tremors, there may now be a way to tame the symptoms. A surgery at one local hospital could bring relief for patients.

Brain surgery can be a scary thing, but one patient here at Baystate Medical Center is calling this new surgery something out of Star Wars.

“I leveled off with the meds, I really couldn’t take any more meds than I was taking, so this was an option for me was the surgery," said Paul Schafer a patient of the surgery.

That surgery is called Deep Brain Stimulation, an FDA approved treatment for Parkinson’s, Essential Tremors and OCD. The procedure has been approved for nearly 20 years, but has not been available in Springfield until the addition of Dr. Mohamad Khaled, a neurosurgeon at Baystate Medical Center.

“The role of surgery here is to target those circuits in a very precise fashion, and millimeter to sub-millimeter accuracy," said Khaled.

After drilling two holes into the head, a set of wires are used to find the “sweet spot”, the spot on the brain that is affected. A small set of wires are sent down the spine, before connecting to a sensor in the heart. The patient is sedated for only a brief time. They must be awake to help Dr. Khaled find the sweet spot.

The patient uses a remote control to activate the sensor…at the push of a button, the symptoms are gone.

With no known side effects, Paul and wife Kathie have dubbed it “something out of star wars”, and are just thankful for this moment.

“We walked out of this building, and sat in our car, and looked at each other, and just gave a big sigh, and smiled and said 'it looks like there’s a way,'” said Kathie Schafer.

Now that he is healthy, Schafer has just two things to worry about. A six month checkup, and a battery replacement in 10 years.

http://www.westernmassnews.com/story/32493024/new-surgery-tames-parkinsons-tremors-ocd