I found the talk, "Moving Better with Parkinson's Disease", given by Brach Poston very interesting.

He has received funding from MJFF.

He seems to rate transcranial direct current stimulation highly. He says it is cheaper, more practical and no less effective than other external stimulation techniques. He says that, although it doesn't work for everyone, improvements in upper body movements of PwP average about 10-15%. (However, he points out that the lower body is likely to be a harder target.)

The procedure he describes for PD uses two sponges soaked in saline solution. These are connected to a battery. (He doesn't mention it but 9V and 12V are common for this purpose.) The anode is bandaged to the scalp above the basal ganglia and the cathode is placed just above the eye brow on the opposite side. A session lasting 15 minutes is typical. The circuit contains electronics to regulate the current to 1mA or 2mA. (Note the current units, mA, one thousandth of an amp.)

He mentions a retail price of $400. In my opinion, I would expect the parts to be less than $10.

Although there is no proof yet that tDCS works in the long term for PD, there seems to me to be enough research results showing benefit in the short term, to decide to expedite research into this approach.

There is a good chance that tDCS is a technology that would reduce the symptoms for millions of PwP around the world by at least 10%. The cost is so low and the ease of use so straight forward that, were there the will, every PwP could be using tDCS in less than a year. As it happens, I suspect I will be disappointed by the slow turning of the wheel of the regulatory process.

John