When medications don't work for Et
If medications don't control your Essential Tremor or if they cause too many side effects, your doctor might recommend surgery. Minimally invasive approaches, such as deep brain stimulation & Focused Ultrasound are available and can help “deactivate” the part of the brain where essential tremor originates.
Essential tremor is the most common movement disorder, and DBS & Focused Ultrasound can be an effective therapy, particularly in severe cases where the shaking can be disabling, limiting everyday tasks such as dressing, shaving, eating or drinking. Since tremor is the only symptom in Essential Tremor, both procedures can improve life for people with the condition and help them function normally.
Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a neurosurgical procedure that uses implanted electrodes and electrical stimulation to treat movement disorders.
Doctors may use DBS for movement disorders or neuropsychiatric conditions when medications have become less effective or if their side effects interfere with a person’s daily activities.
- Surgeons implant one or more small wires (called leads or electrodes) in the brain during a surgical procedure.
- The leads receive mild electrical stimulation from a small pulse generator implanted in the chest.
- Proper patient selection, precise placement of the electrodes and adjustment of the pulse generator are essential for successful DBS surgery.
- DBS does not fully resolve the symptoms of PD or other conditions, but it can decrease a patient’s need for medications and improve quality of life.
FOCUSED ULTRASOUND
What is focus in ultrasound?
How Does Focused Ultrasound Work? Similar to how a magnifying glass can focus beams of light on a single point, focused ultrasound uses an acoustic lens to concentrate multiple sound waves on a point in the body. Your providers use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to guide the waves and target diseased tissue.
Focused ultrasound is an early-stage, non-invasive therapeutic technology with the potential to transform the treatment of many medical disorders by using ultrasonic energy to target tissue deep in the body without incisions or radiation.
Focused ultrasound is the marriage of two innovative technologies:
· focused ultrasound—which provides the energy to treat tissue deep in the body precisely and noninvasively, and
· magnetic resonance or ultrasound imaging—which is used to identify and target the tissue to be treated, guide and control the treatment in real time, and confirm the effectiveness of the treatment.
The fundamental principle is analogous to using a magnifying glass to focus beams of sunlight on a single point to burn a hole in a leaf. With focused ultrasound, an acoustic lens is used to concentrate multiple intersecting beams of ultrasound on a target deep in the body with extreme precision and accuracy. Depending on the design of the lens and the ultrasound parameters, the target can be as small as 1×1.5mm or as large as 10x16mm in diameter.
Where each of the individual beams passes through the tissue, there is no effect. But, at the focal point, the convergence of the multiple beams of focused ultrasound energy results in many important biological effects, creating the possibility of treating a variety of medical disorders.
Focused ultrasound treatments can be performed on an outpatient basis, require no incisions, and can result in minimal discomfort and few complications, allowing for rapid recovery.
Focused ultrasound treatment for essential tremor has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in July 2016.
What is focus in ultrasound?
How Does Focused Ultrasound Work? Similar to how a magnifying glass can focus beams of light on a single point, focused ultrasound uses an acoustic lens to concentrate multiple sound waves on a point in the body. Your providers use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to guide the waves and target diseased tissue.
Focused ultrasound is an early-stage, non-invasive therapeutic technology with the potential to transform the treatment of many medical disorders by using ultrasonic energy to target tissue deep in the body without incisions or radiation.
Focused ultrasound is the marriage of two innovative technologies:
· focused ultrasound—which provides the energy to treat tissue deep in the body precisely and noninvasively, and
· magnetic resonance or ultrasound imaging—which is used to identify and target the tissue to be treated, guide and control the treatment in real time, and confirm the effectiveness of the treatment.
The fundamental principle is analogous to using a magnifying glass to focus beams of sunlight on a single point to burn a hole in a leaf. With focused ultrasound, an acoustic lens is used to concentrate multiple intersecting beams of ultrasound on a target deep in the body with extreme precision and accuracy. Depending on the design of the lens and the ultrasound parameters, the target can be as small as 1×1.5mm or as large as 10x16mm in diameter.
Where each of the individual beams passes through the tissue, there is no effect. But, at the focal point, the convergence of the multiple beams of focused ultrasound energy results in many important biological effects, creating the possibility of treating a variety of medical disorders.
Focused ultrasound treatments can be performed on an outpatient basis, require no incisions, and can result in minimal discomfort and few complications, allowing for rapid recovery.
Focused ultrasound treatment for essential tremor has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in July 2016.
