Tulsa Hospital Provides Surgical Treatment Intended To Decrease Patient Tremors

A Tulsa hospital wants Parkinson’s patients to know there’s an option to reduce tremors that could get them off their medications.

Deep Brain Stimulation is a surgical treatment doctors at Ascension St. John say could decrease a patient’s tremors after just one operation.

Doctor Tyler Auschwitz is a surgeon at the hospital. He says DBS is like a “pacemaker for the brain."

He says the operation involves placing a device into the brain that then stimulates the parts of the brain to make it stop signaling muscles to tremor.

Doctor Auschwitz says patients often see a huge quality of life improvement after surgery.

“The biggest benefit, if you talk to patients, sometimes people are waking themselves up in the middle of the night, taking medicines every 2 to 4 hours, just to prevent or stop the tremoring. This, my goal I tell people, is an 80-percent reduction of meds. And we have a lot of patients that are 100-percent off medications after this procedure," Doctor Auschwitz said.

Doctor Auschwitz says a lot of patients are nervous about operations involving the brain. He suggests they speak with their neurologist or surgeon beforehand to address their concerns.