Many Parkinson’s patients have broken more bones than they can count just from performing simple tasks, like walking up the stairs or doing basic physical activity. Parkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative disorder in the central nervous systems that affect movement. It is caused by the loss of dopamine-producing brain cells and it causes tremors, stiffness, slowness of movement, and balance issues. 

While no direct cure exists, treatments, like medication and surgery, can help manage symptoms. Symptoms often start slowly, many times beginning with a tremor that is barely noticeable in a hand, food, or even a person’s jaw. 

Krehbiel, a political science professor at Stanford University, has dealt with the disease for decades: “I was running and noticed my left arm didn’t move as much as my right arm.”

Even the slightest things could be signs of Parkinson’s. Krehbiel eventually became the first patient in a groundbreaking pivotal international clinical trial to receive an adaptive, deep-brain simulation device. The device senses brain activity in real time and matches electrical pulses accordingly, like a pacemaker for the brain that only fires when needed. 

A small study funded by the Natural Institute of Health found that an implanted device regulated by the body’s brain activity could provide continual and improved treatment for the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease in certain people with the disorder. This type of treatment is an improved version of a technique that has been used previously.

Dr. Helen Bronte-Stewart, a Stanford Medicine professor of neurology and neurological science, has spent the majority of her career “trying to understand how the brain controls movement, what happens when it goes wrong, and how we can fix it.” Bronte-Stewart was the global lead investigator of the international multicenter of aDBS for Parkinson’s patients, a study that resulted in FDA approval of the device.

Tens of thousands of Parkinson’s patients have received traditional deep brain stimulation over the last two decades in which leads, about the size of thin strands of spaghetti, are implanted in the brain, providing electrical stimulation. These leads are used to control the brain’s electrical rhythms, which eases tremors and other Parkinson’s symptoms. The wires are attached to a small battery-powered device implanted under the skin of the chest.

Dr. Helen Bronte-Stewart compares the treatment breakthrough to the earliest pacemakers, which couldn’t sense a person’s heartbeat and could only deliver one steady electrical rhythm. That was the case of deep brain stimulation for Parkinson’s patients for years, until the adaptive device came along.