Experimental treatment for Parkinson's disease - stimulating spinal cord

For everything and anything else not covered in the other RLS sections.
Post Reply
srgraves01
Posts: 106
Joined: Wed Apr 24, 2013 4:34 am

Experimental treatment for Parkinson's disease - stimulating spinal cord

Post by srgraves01 »

Some new research on Parkinson's disease using experimental treatment using Parkinson's disease uses electrical stimulation to the spinal cord. I found a video that showed some successful treatment in mice. I saw another one a few weeks ago that showed successful treatment in humans but I couldn't find it today. Here is the link to the a video about electrical stimulation in mice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b6OElzJlMg It seems like it might be possible for something like this to work for RLS. This might be worth looking into.

Steve

stjohnh
Posts: 1284
Joined: Sun Feb 14, 2016 3:13 pm
Location: Palo Alto, California

Re: Experimental treatment for Parkinson's disease - stimulating spinal cord

Post by stjohnh »

That would be great. However, Parkinson's disease is quite a bit different from RLS. Both respond to DAs, but Parkinson's patients have dopamine deficiency, RLS patients have dopamine excess. There is an important iron component to RLS, not a part of Parkinson's. I'm sure there are others, but while both are movement disorders, there is not much overlap. Sadly, because there is lots of research on Parkinson's.
Blessings,
Holland

Rustsmith
Moderator
Posts: 6476
Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 9:31 pm
Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado

Re: Experimental treatment for Parkinson's disease - stimulating spinal cord

Post by Rustsmith »

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is becoming a common treatment for Parkinsons. The latest issue of the AARP magazine even reported on a new DBS controller and stated that where DBS used to be reserved for the treatment of end stage Parkinsons, it is not being used for newly diagnosed patients. There have been several papers written about the improvement in the RLS symptoms of some Parkinsons patients who also have RLS symptoms.

This is all very interesting because there have been four cases that I know about where DBS has been used to treat severe RLS cases in patients who do not also have Parkinsons. Two surgeries were done in Houston and have been reported in the literature. I understand that two other surgeries have been done in Australia. All four saw significant improvement in the form of reduced medication levels and reduced RLS issues. Where DBS is becoming "routine" for Parkinsons, it is still very much in the research stages for RLS.
Steve

https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/a ... 0/fulltext
Opinions presented by Discussion Board Moderators are personal in nature and do not, in any way, represent the opinion of the RLS Foundation, and are not medical advice.

srgraves01
Posts: 106
Joined: Wed Apr 24, 2013 4:34 am

Re: Experimental treatment for Parkinson's disease - stimulating spinal cord

Post by srgraves01 »

Previously, Parkinson's was primarily treated in the brain with the deep brain stimulation as you mentioned. This new treatment focuses on the spinal cord. It may be that once signals get to the spinal cord, that some of the differences between different diseases becomes less relevant. It would also be interesting if the deep brain stimulation could be applied as a treatment for RLS as well as Parkinsons.

SquirmingSusan
Posts: 3028
Joined: Sun Nov 12, 2006 4:08 am
Location: Minnesota
Contact:

Re: Experimental treatment for Parkinson's disease - stimulating spinal cord

Post by SquirmingSusan »

I hope they figure out something to better treat RLS as well as Parkinson's. I know so many people with Parkinson's, and not a one has had deep brain stimulation. I don't know if it's an insurance thing or it's too risky or another reason.
Susan

Post Reply