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Cleveland – As the symphonic orchestra plays, Rand Lycock stands in the center, carefully guiding musicians.
“I’m going to celebrate 50 years with my community orchestra in three years, and I want to be there for that,” said Rand Lycock.
Rand, who is now 70, received a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease in 2014.
He received medication to help manage his symptoms.
They worked at first, but a few years ago, they seemed to stop.
“I noticed that my symptoms return, so we increased the dosage. We increased the dose, and it became obvious after a while I was going to have to do something else,” said Rand.
Rand consulted Michal Gostkowski, MD, a neurologist at the Cleveland Clinic.
“With Rand, we had very advanced, frank discussions, and for him, it simply improved the tremor, improving dyskinesias,” said Dr. Gostkowski.
Finally, the decision was made to make deep brain stimulation.
The surgical procedure implies implanting electrodes in the brain, which are then controlled with a device powered by battery.
“It’s very good to treat tremors, it’s good to reduce medication, it’s good to reduce dyskinesia. But you have to be very clear, it will not repair walking, it will not solve someone who has blood pressure problems, that will not repair memory,” said Dr. Gostkowski.
Rand did the procedure last year.
And barely a few months ago, he was able to move on to a new programming.
He now has something called adaptive deep brain stimulation (ADBS).
“The advantage of ADB is that it is automatically controlled as opposed to what I become in a way to guess where the parameters must go. It is like driving a car that has a change of stick compared to a car that is automatic,” said Rand.
Dr. Gostkowski said that even if deep brain stimulation has been around for some time, it is still not well known.
He encourages people with Parkinson’s disease to speak with their providers of deep brain stimulation and to see if this could be an option for them.