Tag Archives: DBS

Parkinson's, Research, Reviews , , , Leave a comment

December in July

by
The title refers to the fact that this post was drafted back in December 2016 as an email InfoShare for the Capitol Area Parkinson’s Support (CAPS) group, which is meeting today (July 15 2017) at 2 PM. Never did send it out. So here it is, a few months late, but the news is still timely. Especially the value of early treatment and diagnosis of PD.  So, here it is:
The London School of Economics and Political Science recently released a report on the “Value of Early Diagnosis and Treatment in Parkinson’s Disease”, a literature review of recent studies with recommendations for action. It can be downloaded at http://www.braincouncil.eu/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Parkinson-report-2016-1.pdf 
On a broader view of PD,  here’s a link to a page that has links to just about everything Parkinson’s – The National Institutes of Health (NIH) U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) Medline Plus topic page on Parkinson’s Disease.

Parkinson’s Disease: MedlinePlus

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a movement disorder. It causes tremors, stiffness, and slow movement. It gets wo…
OK – you can spend a week going through all of that information. 
So here are the items mentioned in the subject headline:
First, evidence that DBS is helpful in early stages of PDS, not just in later stages. Benefits extend for at least 5 years.

Motor Skill Improvement With DBS Seen in Early Parkinson’s

The treatment, linked to benefits in advanced disease, shows signs of significant improvement in early-stage dis…
The PDF copy of the research paper referenced in the above news article can be found at this link:
A less drastic approach than brain surgery might be helpful for motor symptoms:

TMS May Ease Bradykinesia, Rigidity in Parkinson’s

New research helps pinpoint which motor symptoms of PD respond to transcranial magnetic stimulation.
Next, contradictory evidence regarding whether statins used to lower cholesterol levels offer a protective effect for PD – previous analyses said yes, but further massage of the data reveals that the answer is not as simple as it seemed at first.

Statin Use Linked to Increased Parkinson’s Risk

Contrary to previous research, a new study shows a higher, rather than lower, risk for Parkinson’s disease a…
Here are links to related articles, papers, and abstracts:

Statins Protective Against Parkinson’s: More Evidence

Further evidence that statin use is associated with a reduction in risk of Parkinson’s disease has come from…
Earlier this year, an analysis of ten reports that yielded different conclusions after adjusting for cholesterol levels.

Confounding of the association between statins and Parkinson disease: syste…
In 2012, the JAMA Neurology journal published a prospective analysis that indicated statins reduced the risk of PD. (PDF of full article is available for free download):
Several years ago, an analysis found publication bias in favor of positive results, and both a protective effect for statin use and no protective effect for long term statin use:

Statin use and risk of Parkinson’s disease: a meta-analysis of observationa…

Inconsistent results regarding the association between statin use and risk of Parkinson’s disease (PD) have been…
And last year, an analysis of published reports that found that use of statins was not protective for PD, in contrast to the hypothesis that statins are protective.

Statins, plasma cholesterol, and risk of Parkinson’s disease: A prospec…
Parkinson's , , 1 Comment

Not just a “last resort”- Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) works for early stages of PD symptoms, too.

by
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:

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.

The PDF copy of the research paper referenced in the above news article can be found at this link:
###