“For patients who can’t tolerate medication side effects or for whom medication isn’t effective, deep brain stimulation is an innovative technology that alleviates troublesome tremor symptoms,” says Casey Halpern, MD, who is board certified in neurological surgery and Division Head of Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery at Penn Medicine.
With deep brain stimulation, a battery-operated device called a neurostimulator—similar to a heart pacemaker and approximately the size of a stopwatch—is surgically implanted in the chest and attached to electrodes placed in targeted areas in the brain.
Electrical impulses are then sent to the electrodes, stimulating changes in the brain that result in reducing tremors and other symptoms. The technology has the ability to treat both sides of the brain and the level of stimulation can be adjusted over time, if necessary.
An alternative treatment for tremors that affect only one side of the body is high intensity focused ultrasound, which is a non-invasive procedure that uses focused beams of acoustic energy to heat and destroy a small, targeted area of tissue in the brain without harming adjacent tissues.
Penn Medicine Princeton Health offers comprehensive care for patients with Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders, including access to the latest treatment options.