Now pacemaker is emerging as a promising treatment in Parkinson’s disease, a brain disease. like Chandra Sekhar Bhowmic, Mita Sarbadhyaksha, Ranjita banarjee, Zafar Ahmed, Harendra Ghosh, Gita Sen, Maya Roy and many more, were suffering from advanced Parkinson’s disease and incapable to perform their daily activities, found their way with brain pacemaker, said Dr Sujoy Sanyal, senior consultant neurosurgeon of Rabindranath Tagore Hospital, Kolkata.
“After the placement of Brain Pacemaker (Deep Brain Stimulation) all of them are back to their normal life”, added Dr Sujoy. Parkinson’s disease, most often develops after age 50, is a condition where people have tremor in hands, develop slowness, rigidity and difficulty in movement. This option with a pacemaker can provide remarkable relief to patients when medicine had very little benefit, he said.
It’s one of the most common brain disorders of the elderly that can limit a person’s working capability and leads to injury from fall; can be controlled with placement of Brain Pacemaker, a highly successful programme running at Rabindranath Tagore Hospital Kolkata since the year 2009, said Dr Sujoy while addressing to the media persons at Hotel limcas at Bokaro.
Explaining about the disease he said Parkinson’s disease occurs when the brain cells that make dopamine (a chemical which helps to control muscle movement) are slowly destroyed; leads to the loss of muscle function.
Modern treatments are effective at managing the early symptoms of the disease, mainly through the use of medicine. The damage gets worse with time and hence the dose of medicine and addition of new medicine are required by and by, said the Doctor.
“As the disease progressed, medicine does not work well and also produce unwanted side effects that further complicate the disease. In this circumstance, a pacemaker that provides electrical impulses to specific parts of the brain to control abnormal rigid movement of the disease can make a significant improvement”, added Dr Sujoy.The Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) surgery involves computer-guided placement of two electrodes into the brain that are connected to a pacemaker placed just below the collarbone on the left side.
Now, brain pacemaker has been modernised with ultra thin electrode connected to pacemaker and rechargeable battery. Thus the disease is no longer a crippling one, he said.“After surgery more patients are returning back to their working life with full capacity after the surgery”, added Dr Sujoy.