A rare surgery for a patient suffering from Parkinson’s disease was successfully conducted by a team of doctors at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital.
Fifty-one-year-old Savitri Devi has been suffering from Parkinson’s disease for the last nine years. Her situation kept deteriorating despite being on medication.
According to the statement by the hospital, “Savitri Devi was getting treated with medicines but her symptoms kept on worsening and she started developing side effects on the medicines. Without medications, she also lost her body movement and could not walk, turn, or get up from bed properly.
Dr. Shrey Jain, Associate Consultant, Neurosurgery Department, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital said, “Deep Brain Stimulation is a new surgery where you stimulate particular brain areas. It acts just like the Pacemaker of the brain. In this case, we planned to stimulate the Subthalamic nucleus of the brain
“It is a minimally invasive surgery wherein electrodes are passed bilaterally in the deep brain through two small holes in the skull. Location was confirmed during surgery by examining the patient continuously and recording the brain’s electric current,” the statement said.
She stated, “Now the patient improved quite well after the surgery and can lead a normal life with no side effects from the medications. The dosage of the medications has been reduced.”
However, According to Dr Ajit K. Sinha, Senior Consultant, Neurosurgery Department, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital said, “There are surgeries available now at very few selected places. Over 7 million people are suffering from Parkinson’s disease alone in India and this disease can be debilitating. Other diseases which have shown positive results with Deep Brain Stimulation include tremors, dystonia, depression, OCD, epilepsy and chronic pain. With the advancing technology and surgical skills, people should be aware of such options so as to get the best chance to lead a normal life in spite of having these problems”