[MKane]

Earlier this week I began haaving troiuble talking. Dyskeneia took over yesterday. A number of friends came over, caled my neuro, who asked then to get me a CT scan. So last night I was taken to an ER 35 milrs away. I refused to go to the local one, (See epiisode in May 2006)

This time I insisted that two friends remain with ne. The CT was performed under anesthisia. It was determined that I did not suffer a stroke and that rhis was a purely emotuinal episode.

I plan to waste no more time on varous neurologists and consult the neuropsychiatrist the deemed me emotionally healthy prior to DBS.

"Just Another Day In Parkinsons"

[chasmo]

could be DBS related. Abour 35% of us are affected..


Charlie

[lou_lou]

Originally Posted by MKane

Earlier this week I began haaving troiuble talking. Dyskeneia took over yesterday. A number of friends came over, caled my neuro, who asked then to get me a CT scan. So last night I was taken to an ER 35 milrs away. I refused to go to the local one, (See epiisode in May 2006)

This time I insisted that two friends remain with ne. The CT was performed under anesthisia. It was determined that I did not suffer a stroke and that rhis was a purely emotuinal episode.

I plan to waste no more time on varous neurologists and consult the neuropsychiatrist the deemed me emotionally healthy prior to DBS.

"Just Another Day In Parkinsons"

http://archneur.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/63/9/1266

Improvements in Outcome With Reprogramming

Subthalamic nucleus (STN) deep brain stimulation (DBS) for Parkinson disease (PD) can provide long-standing and striking improvement,1-3 but it is expensive and requires specialized personnel4-5 and teamwork.5 Considerable time is required for the programming of the electrical parameters and patient management, including drug dosage changes. There are no official guidelines and virtually no formal or standardized training in the factors that impact greatly on the degree of clinical improvement, duration of battery life, and adverse effect profile. Many centers in North America have delegated most of the postoperative management of these patients to surgical nurses, fellows, neurophysiologists, or other personnel who have minimal experience in other aspects of PD care, particularly the complicated drug responses, dyskinesia patterns, unusual aspects of akinesia, etc.

Before 1999, DBS postoperative care at the Toronto Western Hospital Movement Disorders Program (Toronto, Ontario) was directed by a single neurologist with expertise in both DBS and PD pharmacology. Between 1999 and 2002, the overall care of patients was supervised by other movement disorders faculty, but programming of stimulation was performed by an experienced PD nurse; a neuroanatomist/neurophysiologist with many years of experience in PD research; or, less often, a movement disorders fellow. In 2002, the Toronto Western Hospital program recruited a new staff neurologist (E.M.) with 8 years of experience in DBS and movement disorders. We provided postoperative DBS care using a model where the movement disorders neurologist with special training in DBS personally performs most of the programming and simultaneously makes necessary drug adjustments based on personally observed patient responses to changing stimulation parameters.