Electrical Pulses Delivered Far Into the Brain Help Ease Symptoms of Parkinson's Disease

Published: Tuesday, May 20, 2014 at 8:51 p.m. Last Modified: Tuesday, May 20, 2014 at 8:51 p.m.

The illness, which surfaced in his early 40s, had forced him to leave his job as a telephone lineman.

He was increasingly unable to hunt, fish or work in the multiacre yard outside his home north of Lakeland.

He was desperate for additional treatment in 2002, the year the Food and Drug Administration approved deep-brain stimulation for advanced Parkinson's.

Kendrick had surgery in July 2004 at Tampa General Hospital to install the system needed for the electrical treatment.

"If it weren't for deep-brain stimulation therapy, Roland would not be moving around today," said Joyce Kendrick, his wife of 15 years.

That treatment is now standard now for advanced Parkinson's, a disorder of the nervous system that affects movement.

"Patients have improvement for long periods of time," said Dr. Theresa A. Zesiewicz, neurologist and director of The Frances J. Zesiewicz Center and Foundation for Parkinson's Disease at the University of South Florida in Tampa. Close to 100,000 people have gotten deep-brain stimulation by now. Hundreds of her patients have, Zesiewicz said.

There were far fewer when Kendrick got it in 2004, although it was approved in 1997 for essential tremor, a common movement disorder.

BLOCKS ABNORMAL SIGNALS

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Electrical Pulses Delivered Far Into the Brain Help Ease Symptoms of Parkinson's Disease