Pictured above, from left to right: Katerina Markopoulou, MD, helped patient María-Paz Salas manage her tremors and movement symptoms.
María-Paz Salas felt like she was walking with weights around her ankles. A few mouse clicks later, and “the weights are gone,” said Salas, an elementary school outreach coordinator and Endeavor Health patient.
Salas is one of the first patients outfitted with the new adaptive deep brain stimulation (DBS) technology to better manage the symptoms of her Parkinson’s disease. Endeavor Health is the only provider in Illinois and one of only 20 nationwide offering this new treatment, which has been shown to give patients more hours free of life-altering symptoms, like tremors and slowed movement.
“For patients, it can be liberating,” said Katerina Markopoulou, MD, the Endeavor Health neurologist leading the clinical practice, who is also Stanley C. Golder Chair of Neuroscience Research. “If you have these tools, it gives you the ability to better manage your symptoms and improves the quality of life.”
Dubbed a “pacemaker for the brain,” the adaptive DBS (aDBS) therapy builds on the previous continuous DBS (cDBS) therapy. Continuous DBS involves the implantation of a stimulator device on both sides of the brain and a battery in the chest that allows for stimulation adjustments. However, adjustments are manual and do not adjust automatically as the patient experiences symptoms.
Once calibrated for the new aDBS software by a neurologist using a tablet, the device can deliver stimulation that automatically adjusts throughout the day to compensate and improve the control of changing symptoms.
Dr. Markopoulou, who has been researching and treating patients with movement disorders like Parkinson’s for 25 years, said the goal of the aDBS therapy is to compensate for fluctuating abnormal brain rhythms that can cause tremors and slowness of movement.
“When you suppress these brain rhythms, called beta activity, you can effectively suppress the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease patients. “It’s like adjusting the volume of the radio,” she said. “It’s a relatively simple change, but it can make a big difference for patients.”
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