BALTIMORE — Patients with Parkinson’s disease treated with deep-brain stimulation (DBS) in the early stage of disease show significant improvements in motor skills extending out to 5 years of follow-up, offering encouraging, though preliminary, evidence that the known benefits seen in advanced and midstage disease could also apply to earlier stages.
“We found that not only is DBS combined with medicine better than medicine alone, but we have this longitudinal data showing a sustained benefit for 5 years,” senior author David Charles, MD, professor and vice-chairman of neurology and chief medical officer of the Vanderbilt Neuroscience Institute at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, in Nashville, Tennessee, told Medscape Medical News.
“Even with these small numbers of patients, the separation favoring DBS is dramatic, so this is very encouraging,” he said.
Not just a “last resort”- Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) works for early stages of PD symptoms, too.
Science marches on. Researchers found evidence that DBS is helpful in early stages of PDS, not just in later stages. Benefits extend for at least 5 years:
The PDF copy of the research paper referenced in the above news article can be found at this link:
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bob's brain: living well with a movement disorder and other comorbidities 