I have enjoyed the article on Deboroah's surgery and have wept with her. I pray for her sucessful future surgery. The following article appeared in the Columbus, GA Ledger Enquirer on March 19, 2002. I hope it is within the guidelines to send this...I don't really know the guidelines... The subject is a list member.
Mary Jo
Steady help
BY LARRY GIERER
Staff Writer
Jimmy Stinson rose gingerly from his seat and made a small step forward. He then took another. Then, another.
Stinson then sat back down and cried.
"After two years in a wheelchair I never thought I'd be able to walk again without being off balance, without falling down," remarked the former teacher at Arnold Middle School.
Stinson, 54, suffers from Parkinson's disease. He was first diagnosed with the ailment when he was 31. It grew progressively worse to where he had trouble walking and speaking. His hands shook.
"I'd just about given up hope," said Stinson, who still has a slight speech impediment.
Then, Columbus neurosurgeon Marc Goldman came into his life.
"He saved me," Stinson said.
Goldman did this by implanting an Activa Parkinson's Control Therapy device into Stinson's head and upper chest.
"It's like a pacemaker for the brain," said Goldman, the only local physician currently trained, he said, to install the device. "The technology has been around since the 1980s but it just recently received Food and Drug Administration approval for use for advanced Parkinson's Disease."
How it works
The system works by stimulating areas deep within the brain that influence motor control. Continuous stimulation of these areas blocks the signals causing the disabling motor symptoms of the disease. A medical device called a neurostimulator -- similar to a cardiac pacemaker -- is implanted near the collarbone and delivers mild electrical signals to the brain via a thin, implanted coiled wire with electrodes attached at the tip.
Until recently few could afford to get the therapy device. The disease is most common in people older than 50, and until last year Medicare would not help pay for the expensive procedure.
Goldman said nobody knows the cause for Parkinson's disease, a progressive and degenerative neurological disorder. There is no cure.
The disease has several symptoms. "The worst is rigidity," Goldman said. "The limbs and joints get very inflexible. The muscles are always tense and contracted which is often painful and makes it hard to function."
Others include a slowness or absence of movement, impaired balance and coordination, and the involuntary rhythmic shaking of a limb or the head, mouth or tongue.
"There's a small part of the brain called the substantia nigra or 'black substance' and when it begins to degenerate the trouble begins," Goldman said.
Other methods
When the neurons or brain cells in that area die they deprive the brain of the chemical dopamine, a neurotransmitter that enables communication among the brain cells involved in motor control. The reduced levels of dopamine lead to the symptoms.
"We use a drug called Sinement which replaces the dopamine," explained Goldman, "but the side effects, which may include severe nausea and vomiting, can keep some from using it. Another side effect can be abnormal, uncontrollable movements which are worse than the problems already being suffered. After a few years the body can become resistant to the medication."
Brain operations have helped some Parkinson's patients but the risks include stroke.
One of the operations is a thalamotomy, in which a surgeon inserts a needle into the brain and destroys a specific group of cells in the thalamus, the brain' s communication center. The procedure has been known to reduce or eliminate tremors.
Another surgery is a pallidotomy, in which an electric probe is used to destroy specific cells of the brain's globus pallidus that experts believe are overactive in Parkinson's patients because of the lack of dopamine.
As for the Activa Parkinson's Control Therapy, it's relatively safe.
Surgeons must have special training to do the procedure. Goldman, who attended Hardaway High and the University of Georgia before entering Emory Medical school, got his training at the Mayo Clinic.
"The patient controls when it's on and when it's off, using a wand-like device," said Goldman. "It runs on a battery so a lot of people wouldn't want the battery running down while they're asleep."
The battery needs changing about every three to five years, a simple surgical procedure according to Goldman.
"I didn't have mine turned on for a couple of weeks while I healed from the surgery," said Stinson. "As soon as it was turned on I could feel the difference. I was so relieved. I was a changed man."
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