MIAMI – Nearly one million people in the United States are living with Parkinson’s disease.
For some, medications help slow the progression of this nervous system disorder, but for others, Parkinson’s can be debilitating.
A year ago, a recent day of shopping in London would have been impossible for Tahira Riaz.
Before she was even 40 years old, the now retired math teacher began having trouble writing on a chalkboard.
“My hand was trembling, I was unable to write properly, I couldn’t hold my hand properly,” Riaz said.
The diagnosis was Parkinson’s disease, which eventually had Riaz confined to a wheelchair.
Parkinson’s is a chronic, progressive disorder that affects the area of the brain that controls movement and coordination.
But Riaz is amazingly out of the wheelchair now thanks to a procedure called deep brain stimulation.
The Memoial Neuroscience Institute is one of a handful of centers that perform DBS while the patient is asleep, using tiny, high tech tools.
“We use advanced technology, including robotics, to very precisely place electrodes deep inside the patient’s brain,” said Dr. Christopher DeMassi with the Memorial Neuroscience Institute. “The system delivers electrical impulses to the brain, where is it not functioning, to alleviate the symptoms.”
Traditional deep brain stimulation surgery can take up to 10 hours to complete, with the patient wide awake. This robotic method can take less than an hour.
And as Riaz found out, the results can be life changing.
“I can walk around, move around, I can do whatever I want to do,” she said.
In addition to the electrodes implanted in Riaz’s brain, a tiny pacemaker type device was implanted in her chest. That device delivers the electrical impulses that disrupt abnormal brain signals and regulate brain activity.