Help Aging Parents: Ceasing Parkinson’s Disease and Essential Tremor– Success at UCLA

Our Uncle Lou may have been one of the longest Parkinson’s survivors. He was a talented Hollywood writer whose creative genes worked overtime. A true genius, he was witty, always with a new idea, and a great way of presenting things–until the end of his life at age 78. He lived with Parkinson’s for 27 years, always looking for and hoping for some kind of relief, if not complete cure.

After being accepted for experimental electrode-brain-implant surgery, he went to Grenoble, France in the 1980’s (accompanied by Sr. Advisor, R, his sister). Three surgical procedures were planned. However, a seizure caused the first to be halted. Uncle Lou was immediately “put back together.” No physical harm. It did, however, involve expense, difficult (for him) travel, and raised hopes and expectations that, sadly, were dashed. We know–too many of us first-hand–what happens as the disease progresses. We cling to hope that advances are made. So I share the information below, with hopes that UCLA’s procedure will make it possible to bring this much needed advance to millions.

The following is copied from UCLA Health Publications’ May 22, 2013 email. Also note: while the May 23 video of the brain pacemaker implant has passed, update: you can access the link at the right sidebar of this page under News Briefs. The webinar is/was June 11 and there may be continuing conversations on Twitter. Since I’m updating, I’m leaving in the Twitter as well as the Webinar information at end of post.

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Celebrate our 500th Deep Brain Stimulation Surgery
to Cease Tremors

Nader Pouratian, MD, and the deep brain stimulation team at UCLA are celebrating their 500th patient implanted with a brain pacemaker to cease Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor. During the procedure, the patient will be woken up and play guitar live while Dr. Nader Pouratian implants a brain pacemaker.

An estimated 10 million Americans have essential tremor and more than one million suffer from Parkinson’s disease. For many of our patients at UCLA, deep brain stimulation is “miraculous” in stopping the tremors and thus enabling them to return to normal daily life.

Join us for a live-tweet surgery and join the conversation on Twitter at @UCLAHealth with hashtag #UCLAORLive to follow along with the surgery.

Save The Date

Join Dr. Pouratian for a live-streaming webinar on June 11th to learn about the latest advances in Deep Brain Stimulation for Parkinson’s Disease and Tremors. Register for the webinar »

About Nader Pouratian, MD

Nader Pouratian, MD, PhD. is the director of the UCLA Functional and Movement Disorder Program. He is an expert in deep brain stimulation surgery to treat movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, essential tremor and dystonia.

Dr. Pouratian is sought out by peers, patients and the media to speak about advances in deep brain stimulation. His latest research focuses on brain mapping tools that can expand surgical indications to improve function for patients with movement and psychiatric disorders. He is studying brain-mapping signals to develop brain-computer interfaces to help patients with severe motor and language disabilities.

SAVE THE DATE

DBS WEBINAR

When: June 11, 2013

Time: 1:00 pm PDT