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Hi, Dr. Chris - Thanks for the helpful suggestion. Dick has actually been using a radio to check his stimulators - we learned that early on from the first patient to have the pallidal stim at KU Med. Dick has been leaving his stimulators turned on day and night since we happened to meet the Medtronics engineer who developed the stimulator. She said there was no particular benefit to turning it off at night. That's why it took us some time to realize it was off. What we ran into this time when he finally checked it was that he got a confusing sound from one stimulator. It didn't sound exactly "off" or "on." When he had the stimulator checked (the battery was fine), he was told it had been off for long enough to switch to a "back-up" setting. We didn't know there was such a thing. Do the stimulators have a "back-up" setting that comes on if the stimulators are off for too long? Thanks for your help. We appreciate the expertise you share with the list. The DBS surgeries have been a lifesaver for us. Margie Swindler << You can check yourself whether the stimulator is switched off by holding a small transistor radio (set at the midwave band) near the wiring or the stimulator and you will hear a buzzing noise. If you don't hear it, the stimulator is switched off and you can turn it on with the magnet and check with the radio to see whether the magnet was able to switch on the stimulator. If you are not succesful switching on the stimulator with the magnet, the battery of the stimulator is probably dead and needs to be replaced. Greetings, >>