AURORA, Colo. — A medical breakthrough right here in Colorado — a UCHealth patient became the first in the nation to use groundbreaking technology to treat advanced Parkinson’s disease, a disease impacting an estimated 1 million people nationwide.
“I used to run every day. Lift weights,” recalled Kate Goes In Center, the patient at the heart of this breakthrough research.
The 74-year-old got the diagnosis in 2019 after searching for answers with no luck.
“They kept telling me, 'Oh you don’t have Parkinson’s' – and then I visited Anschutz and their team said, 'Oh, yeah, Parkinson’s. It’s that fast,” she said.
That's where she met doctors Drew Kern and John Thompson — who, over the past several years, have been working with researchers across the globe to develop groundbreaking new technology called adaptive deep brain stimulation.
It expands on already existing technology which surgically places electrodes into specific regions of the brain.
In the past, doctors had to adjust this by pre-predicting optimal settings, which didn’t always work. Now, though, the electrodes adapt in real-time using the patient's own brain signals.
“It’s hopeful that this will certainly reduce the number of fluctuations, the on-off time, and give that individual that constant level function that they're looking for,” said Dr. Kern.
We watched as Kate’s tremors went away in a matter of minutes on Friday as the researchers demonstrated the treatment’s capabilities for the first time outside of a research setting in the U.S.
“To get Kate to be able to sit like she is right now would have taken me hours to get her to look like this, which we literally just did in a matter of minutes. That's really surprising,” said Dr. Kern.
Now, this treatment is expected to change millions of lives in the fight against Parkinson's.
“To bring that today to something that's now commercially available that used to be just an idea, is really kind of, when you sit back and think about it, very nostalgic,” said Dr. Kern. “It's – I never thought we'd really get here. That's really meaningful, especially when you have somebody that you can actually help.”
As for Kate, she's feeling something she hasn't felt for a long time:
“It gives me hope,” she said. “I have grandchildren and I really want to see my grandchildren grow, so its giving me hope.”
The new technology already rolled out in Europe, but will be available Monday at a number of U.S. centers, including here at UCHealth.
Doctors tell Denver7 they already have four procedures scheduled for Monday and 10 more in the coming weeks.
The hospital said patients who already have deep brain simulators can re-program their existing system in a matter of hours.
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