New treatment at Baystate designed to help Parkinson’s patients

Logan Leavitt
July 19, 2016

This procedure has never been offered in this region before

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) – A new procedure will soon be offered at Baystate Medical Center to help treat the symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease.

Deep Brain Stimulation helps cure patients of the tremors that come with the disease. It is a two-part procedure, with the first part consisting of fixing the tremors and the second part making the fixes permanent.

This procedure has never been offered in this region before, and is a major advancement for eligible patients with this debilitating condition.

According to a news release from Baystate, here’s how the procedure works:

A highly trained neurosurgeon, Dr. Mohamad Khaled, drills a small hole into the skull, under local sedation, and inserts electrical wires into the area of the brain where circuit errors are causing the symptoms associated with Parkinson’s and Essential Tremors.

Dr. Khaled asks the patient to point a laser in the direction of a target on the wall. As Dr. Khaled adjusts the electrical wires to target the appropriate circuit in the brain, the patient’s shaking hand slowly begins to stop so that the laser is directly pointed in one location.

That’s when Dr. Khaled knows he found the “sweet spot” for the electrodes, and the patient suddenly is nearly cured of the tremors.

Watch video:

http://wwlp.com/2016/07/19/new-treatment-at-baystate-designed-to-help-parkinsons-patients/