{"id":26173,"date":"2017-05-24T10:53:04","date_gmt":"2017-05-24T14:53:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/toh.wpengine.com\/en\/?p=26173"},"modified":"2020-09-25T15:59:48","modified_gmt":"2020-09-25T19:59:48","slug":"stimulating-the-brain-helps-halt-parkinsons-tremors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/healthy-tomorrows\/stimulating-the-brain-helps-halt-parkinsons-tremors\/","title":{"rendered":"Stimulating the brain helps halt Parkinson\u2019s tremors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\"><em>Shelby Hayter, who has Parkinson\u2019s disease, underwent deep brain stimulation surgery to control her tremors and symptoms.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Shelby Hayter ran the Boston Marathon in 2005, just a month after she was diagnosed with early onset Parkinson\u2019s disease. Within a few years, she could no longer run.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Walking became difficult too, because her left foot began dragging. Tremors in her hands made zipping up her coat and holding a glass without spilling difficult. She\u2019d be seized with rigidity and stiffness. At times, her left hand would become a claw. The disease was slowly taking away her mobility.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInstead of wearing a red, sparkly dress, I would wear beige so I wouldn\u2019t attract attention,\u201d said Hayter. \u201cBefore Parkinson\u2019s disease, I was among the life of the party.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>For 11 years, the standard Parkinson\u2019s medication helped take the tremors away and lessened the symptoms. But gradually the treatments became less effective.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div style=\"position: relative; height: 0; padding-bottom: 56.21%;\"><iframe title=\"Shelby Hayter - Ottawa Hospital Patient Story\" style=\"position: absolute; width: 100%; height: 100%; left: 0;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dITPg8jZegc?ecver=2\" width=\"641\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Her neurologist, Dr. David Grimes, explained a year ago that she had almost reached the end of the Parkinson\u2019s medication regime. He suggested the next step \u2013 deep brain stimulation surgery, whereby electrodes would be implanted in her brain, providing regular electrical pulses to help control the disease\u2019s tremors.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI felt at the end of the line, that it was a last desperate attempt,\u201d Hayter said.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>She was assessed by Neurologist Dr. Tiago Mestre, who considered her a candidate for deep brain stimulation surgery. On Oct. 18, 2016, during an eight-hour surgery, Dr. Adam Sachs implanted micro-electrodes in Hayter\u2019s brain. She was awake for 90 percent of the operation.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Three weeks later, she had a long, involved second part of the procedure when the neurostimulator in her upper right chest was turned on. Then the doctors started to determine the optimum balance between the stimulator voltage and her Parkinson\u2019s medication.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Six months later, Hayter is doing well. Her tremors are under control, the stiffness reduced, and she looks and feels younger. She might even wear a red, sparkly dress again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When standard treatment for her Parkinson\u2019s disease was no longer effective, Shelby Hayter underwent brain surgery to implant electrodes to help control her symptoms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":26176,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[414],"class_list":["post-26173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-healthy-tomorrows","tag-parkinsons-disease"],"acf":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}