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Nancy....and All I happened to catch "20/20" last nite and saw the segment about that "new" Parkinson's surgery the program's "resident physician" gushed over. The procedure never was referred to by name but it was, as far as I could tell (this is an EDUCATED guess), the brain stimulation procedure which several of our list members have already had. It was never said that this was a treatment for relief of symptoms ONLY. While the word "cure" was not mentioned at any point, in looking at the PD patients, had I not been educated in the ins and outs of this disease and current treatments - the average non-PD layperson's view, in other words - I'd have drawn the conclusion after seeing the pre and the post-surgical videos, where the patients were very "normal" and well LOOKING (as opposed to what they may have actually FELT like inside), the presumption would have been these individuals WERE cured. Imagine to yourself what YOU would have thought were you John or Jane Q. Public and initially saw a woman twisted up like a pretzel and wildly gyrating constantly, then, in the next shot of her, she's merrily gardening, then cooking and serving up a huge dinner for her family (who just sat there like a bunch of LUMPS while mom did all the work!). The other PD patients were shown in the same light... IF I'd been the aforementioned John or Jane Q. Public, I'd have thought "WOWIE! A Parkinson's CURE!" (tho as I said, THAT word was never mentioned in the presentation) The "20/20" resident doctor DID say that only 40 of the presumed-to-be brain stims had been done in France (and this program presented the French surgery as the original), and said that only 10 - yup, TEN - had been done in the USA. (WRONG, bozo!) which indicated to me he isn't up on what's happening in the world of PD medicine. Barbara Walters chirped up that along whit that OTHER Parkinson's surgery they featured on the program some months ago, that it sure looked great out there for the Parkinson's sufferer... That "other" surgery is the pallidotomy (I saw that segment too), and as we all know it CAN relieve PD symptoms, (and speaking from personal experience, it worked very well in my case) but NEITHER surgery can halt the progress of the disease as it inexorably proceeds to degenerate within us. THAT "20/20" somehow overlooked in it's presentation... ALSO "overlooked" was the fact that the stim-device is turned off at night when the patient sleeps or if they turn it off to conserve battery power, all their original, pre-surgery PD symptoms are immediatly there once again. Barb Mallut [log in to unmask] -----Original Message----- From: Parkinson's Information Exchange On Behalf Of burnham Sent: Saturday, April 12, 1997 10:40 AM To: Multiple recipients of list PARKINSN Subject: 20/20 Did anyone see 20/20 Friday evening. They told of a new treatment that has been used in France and it has been very successful on over 50 PDP. The info is suppose to be introduced in a week. It was sort of like a pace makers for the brain. If a cure should happen, the "tools" could be removed. The people they showed had made a dramatic improvement. Nancy