Shock to the System

Headnote

Deep Brain Stimulation Changes Lives of Patients with Tremors

Paul Schafer's wife likens it to "something out of Star Wars," but it's firmly in the realm of real-world science, and it holds the potential to change countless lives. It's called deep brain stimulation, and for Schafer, who suffers from essential tremor, as well as many Parkinson's disease patients, this treatment - now available at Baystate Medical Center - has opened a door to enjoying the activities of daily life most people take for granted.

Paul Schafer pressed a button on a small, handheld device, and started to shake.

The tremors were subtle at first, but within seconds his hands were shaking uncontrollably. When he picked up a plastic cup, the doctors sitting with him were grateful it was empty. When they handed him a pen to write his name, the scrawl couldn't even be recognized as letters, let alone anything intelligible.

That was his life before his recent brain surgery, one of the first of its kind in the region. But when he pressed that button again - not without difficulty - the shaking stopped, and he was able, once again, to perform those simple activities.

That's his life now.

"It changed my whole life," said Schafer, 74, while sitting with his wife, Kathie, and the Baystate Medical Center doctors who facilitated that change. "All the mundane things you do every day, I wasn't able to do without help - drink coffee out of a mug, brush my teeth, comb my hair, button my shirt... all the stuff everyone takes for granted. It was too challenging to do those things before the surgery."

The procedure is known as deep brain stimulation, and it helps people like Schafer - who suffers from a common neurological movement disorder called essentia] tremor - as well as patients with Parkinson's disease, dystonia, and obsessive-compulsive disorder, a chance at a normal life.

The tremors caused by such conditions can be debilitating. But DBS, performed successfully - as Baystate neurosurgeon Dr. Mohamad Khaled did for Schafer - is opening up a dramatic new door to quality of life for potentially millions of sufferers.

The surgery - which involves drilling a small hole into the skull, under local sedation, and...