What happens immediately after deep brain stimulation surgery for patients with Parkinson's disease?

Doctor's Answers 1

Essentially the surgery gives Parkinson's patients immediate help afterwards. Some of these patients have it in their body and it really works straight away, after the battery is turned on.

Similar Questions

Who is a good candidate for DBS (deep brain stimulation)?

Essentially the criteria we look out for are Parkinson's patients we feel will greatly benefit from this. We are looking for patients who maybe have mobile fluctuations, meaning they have this “on-off” phenomenon. We want to make sure we do not treat patients with dementia because they do not respond as well to DBS and we want to exclude patients who have severe depression. Again, patients with depression should not have surgery until their depression is stable. So we eliminate those patients who aren't suitable.

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Answered By

Dr Nicolas Kon

Neurosurgeon

What is the cut off age requirement for deep brain stimulation?

Traditionally, we kind of set an age limit of 70 years old, meaning that beyond that we would say that maybe they should not get DBS because it might not be able to help. Over time we became more flexible with age limits, and have done DBS for patients in their mid to late 70s to help them. The amount of help DBS can give often diminishes as the patient ages.

Photo of Dr Nicolas Kon

Answered By

Dr Nicolas Kon

Neurosurgeon

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