Revolutionary Treatment Arrives at Norton’s Hospital for Parkinson’s Treatment.
HiFU, or High Frequency Ultrasound, is cutting-edge technology to help people who suffer from Parkinson’s Disease and Essential Tremors to reduce shaking. Norton’s Hospital in Louisville is now one of twenty-one hospitals in the U.S. to offer this treatment and the only hospital in Kentucky currently. It’s called an MR Guided High-Frequency Focused Ultrasound or MRGFUS purchased by the Norton Foundation, working inside an existing MRI machine. Norton’s Neuroscience will be using an upgraded version of this technology called Exablate Prime, which will allow for a faster procedure and improve patient comfort during treatment.
How does it work?
The patient lies down on an MRI table, and a helmet called a Transducer is placed upon the head. This helmet delivers more than a thousand ultrasound waves in an area chosen by the doctors a few millimeters in size, creating a very precise burn and causing a lesion in the affected area. The Focused Ultrasound treatment disrupts abnormal communication pathways present in the brain that are causing patient’s symptoms, says Dr. Vivek P. Buch Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery at Stanford Medicine
According to Dr. Abigail Rao of the Norton’s Neuroscience Institute, “This can all be done without the patient needing something put into their brain, without sedation or anesthesia, or without being in the hospital. So, the patient will stay laid down on the MRI table, but they will slide in and out. Their surgeon and support team will go in and test their tremor. So that's why we have to have the patient awake, we literally test their tremor. We may ask them to draw a spiral on a clipboard or to pretend like they're drinking from a cup of water," said Rao during their press conference.
What is Parkinson’s and Essential Tremors?
Parkinson’s is a progressive neurodegenerative disease caused by the loss of dopamine-producing neurons in the brain. People with Parkinson’s experience tremors when a moving body part stops moving, struggles to maintain their balance, and exhibits slowness of movement as the disease progresses. Those who develop Parkinson’s disease start seeing symptoms after the age of sixty.
Essential Tremors is a condition that commonly affects the hands more so than other parts of the body. This can affect someone’s quality of life when doing everyday tasks and eating or drinking. Family members can also pass down Essential Tremors through succeeding generations.
According to the New England Journal of Medicine, propranolol and primidone are given to patients as first-line medications that will reduce tremors by approximately 60% in 50% of patients. Parkinson’s treatments are tailored based on an individual’s needs, physical, speech, or occupational therapy and are just some of the options available. Parkinsons.org recommends a team approach with your healthcare providers to help combat your symptoms and sticking to a routine can give a patient the greatest benefits.
For those who qualify for HiFU, the benefits could be even higher, but according to Norton’s Neuroscience, HiFU is one of a growing list of treatment options, and different options are right for different patients. Those who do get the procedure will see significant improvements in their tremors; however, it may not stop the tremors completely, and it isn’t a cure.
To schedule an evaluation for focused ultrasound treatment for essential tremor or tremor-dominant Parkinson’s disease, call (502) 671-9489 or email them at FocusedUltrasound@nortonhealthcare.org.
The HiFU procedure was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2016
Photo Credit: Generated by Adobe Firefly for C.Denny
