rainbow676,

Welcome to the forum. You've asked some great questions.

As a first step, soccertese's advice to make the most of existing therapies is sound. I would stress exercise as part of that mix. But, as a second step, I think it is prudent to keep track of newly arising technologies that at a later time may prove efficacious for your mother.

TMS is a promising, but unproven, technology for the treatment of PD. However, I could see a situation developing in a couple of year's time where there is a very strong case for its use as an adjunct therapy for Parkinson's. Unfortunately, it may take more years to get through the regulatory process. In such a situation you would have to decide whether to wait for the official release or to build a DIY solution. Waiting has the advantage of apparent safety, but in the reality of Parkinson's waiting has its own costs.

TMS is a mainstream therapy. Its use has been approved in the UK for migraine [1].

Work is continuing on the best use of TMS for Parkinson's. For instance, Medical News reported [2] last year of work in Japan:

"The 34 patients given low-frequency (1 Hz) rTMS had a 4.91-point improvement in the primary endpoint and the 34 given high-frequency (10 Hz) rTMS had a 4.71-point improvement. The were no significant differences between the groups, which the team attributes to a "substantial sham effect" concealing the true benefits of treatment."

DIY approaches are described at the website of Open-rTMS [3] and at other sites on the web.

Related areas to consider are transcranial direct current stimulation and spinal stimulation.

I've played with building my own system using an Arduino board, but I've made little progress.

I've also tried an approach using strobe lighting, both with and without pulsating sound. (My reasoning being that light generates electrical currents in the brain. It is possible, therefore, that this may be a backdoor route to brain stimulation.) Note: strobe lighting is dangerous for some people. My experience of using this approach was that it had an effect, but in the wrong direction - it increased my tremors. There are many parameters, so I think that there is still a possibility that it can be tuned to give benefit. My program can be run directly off the web at:

http://www.parkinsonsmeasurement.org...ox/strobes.htm

References

[1] http://www.nhs.uk/news/2014/01Januar...t-therapy.aspx

[2] http://www.news-medical.net/news/201...s-disease.aspx

[3] http://open-rtms.sourceforge.net/

John