Parkinson’s disease is a neurologic disorder affecting the brain cells, which gets worse over time due to disease progression. It is categorized as a movement disorder as it tends to affect motor function.
Parkinson’s disease is the second most common neurologic disorder behind Alzheimer’s disease, affecting about 1 million Americans. Based on a 2019 report, approximately 8.5 million people were estimated to live with Parkinson’s disease.
Parkinson’s Disease Common Symptoms
Recognizing how Parkinson’s disease can affect a person can help illustrate the essential need for effective treatment options. Symptoms of Parkinson’s disease frequently include:
- Lack of balance and coordination
- Shaking (called a tremor) of the hands, arms, legs and face
- Slowed movement, including difficulty getting movement started or changing directions when walking
- Stiffness
People with Parkinson’s disease tend to have symptoms of feeling slowed down overall. They may also experience other symptoms, such as:
- Changes in handwriting
- Constipation
- Difficulty eating (due to tremors)
- Difficulty sleeping
- Drooling (due to difficulty with swallowing)
- Drops in blood pressure upon standing, called orthostatic hypotension
- Hallucinations
- Impaired memory and cognition
- Mood changes
- Speech changes (speaking more softly or slurring speech)
Several other movement disorders can mimic the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, including parkinsonism, multiple system atrophy and progressive supranuclear palsy.
Because these symptoms can greatly affect a person’s quality of life, patients and providers alike are eager to find new treatments to address the disease. One such new treatment is focused ultrasound treatment.
Focused Ultrasound Treatment for Parkinson’s Disease
A new minimally invasive procedure that uses focused ultrasound to treat the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease is called focused ultrasound ablation. It offers people living with the disease another treatment option for symptom improvement and better quality of life.
Focused ultrasound has been shown to improve certain symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, including tremors, mobility issues and slurred speech. A multi-site clinical trial led by researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine showed significant improvement in symptoms for the majority of Parkinson’s disease patients, with about two-thirds (70 percent) of patients showing improvement in symptoms following focused ultrasound treatment.
The procedure does not require an incision, eliminating the risk of brain infections compared to surgery. During the procedure the patient is awake and wearing a transducer helmet, which helps to guide focused energy from the ultrasound through the skull to an area deep within the brain, called the globus pallidus, that helps control movement.
The scan helps the physician see the brain in real time so that the energy from the ultrasound can be directed at precisely the location needed for improvement. The ultrasound heats up the area of the brain being treated to destroy the area of the brain, causing abnormal movement.
Because the patient is awake throughout the procedure, the physician can get immediate feedback to ensure that symptoms improve, allowing them to make any adjustments necessary during the procedure for optimal improvement.
Focused ultrasound breathes new life into available treatments for Parkinson’s disease and provides hope for improvement to people with the disease who have debilitating symptoms that are not well controlled with other medical therapies. Focused ultrasound is a promising treatment that may improve the quality of life for Parkinson’s patients who have not had much success with other treatment options.
While the results are excellent, focused ultrasound is somewhat less effective than deep brain stimulation, which is a surgically implanted device that helps decrease many symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. However, many patients choose focused ultrasound because it is less intrusive than deep brain stimulation.
Medical insurance does not always cover all of these procedures, but coverage is improving. Check with your insurance provider for more information.
Watch a Video
Watch a short video about focused ultrasound for essential tremor.
Medical contributions and review by Howard Eisenberg, MD, the Raymond K. Thompson Professor of Neurosurgery at University of Maryland School of Medicine, a neurosurgeon at University of Maryland Medical Center, and principal investigator of the multi-site focused ultrasound clinical trial.
