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Brain electrode helps Parkinson's disease NEW YORK, Jul 02, 1999 (Reuters Health) -- Electrically stimulating a region of the brain appears to show some promise for treating movement problems in patients with Parkinson's disease, according to preliminary results in five patients. Dr. Tetsuo Yokoyama and colleagues from Hamamatsu University School of Medicine in Japan surgically placed an electrode that continuously stimulated the patients' subthalamic nucleus, a region of the brain that helps to control movement. The patients were between 60 and 73 years of age and had balance problems and a ``freezing gait,'' a disorder associated with Parkinson's disease in which the person suddenly stops during walking and cannot continue, according to a report in the July issue of Neurosurgery. Three of the patients had previously undergone pallidotomy, another type of brain surgery, but had not improved. Three months after placement of the electrode, tests scores for falling, freezing, and ease of walking were significantly improved compared with the presurgery scores in all five patients, the investigators report. The level of improvement was on par with drug treatment used before the surgery. On further study, the team found that patients experienced fewer falls and marked improvement in freezing and gait after subthalamic nucleus stimulation, but there was no effect on balance problems. Subthalamic stimulation ``effectively alleviates freezing gait and improves walking to its status during the preoperative on-drug phase and can be applied for the treatment of Parkinson's patients with these symptoms,'' Yokoyama and colleagues conclude. In an accompanying editorial, Roy A.E. Bakay of Atlanta, Georgia, writes that it is still too early to ``anoint subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation as the next miracle in the treatment of Parkinson's disease, but it certainly merits continued investigation.'' SOURCE: Neurosurgery 1999;45:41-49. Copyright © 1999 Reuters Limited.