LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Louisville’s Norton Neuroscience Institute is the first and only facility in Kentucky to offer a new procedure to help treat essential tremor and tremor-dominant Parkinson’s disease.
Robert Bender, 65, has been affected by the disease for years.
“I’ve always had very small tremors when I was younger,” Bender said. “You couldn’t really tell it.”
After a motorcycle incident, he said noticed his tremors got progressively worse, affecting every area of his life. He said he struggled with putting his credit card in the card reader, putting food on his fork and even writing his name.
“It’s debilitating; it really is,” Bender said. “I mean, you don’t think about it. And most people, they just take it for granted because your hands pick up things, you do things and then I can’t.”
“I literally just can’t do some things. I literally would go places (and) keep my hands in my pocket because I don’t want people to see it.”
Norton Neuroscience Institute is now Kentucky’s only facility to offer MRI-guided, high-frequency focused ultrasound for essential tremor and tremor-dominant Parkinson’s disease.
Doctor Abigail Rao said the technology was purchased with $2.8 million in funding through the Norton Healthcare Foundation.
“It’s estimated that maybe about 3 to 5% of the population in the United States has the condition that Bob has that we saw today, and about 50% of patients who have it really don’t have adequate control with non-surgical treatment,” Rao said.
She added patients will experience improved tremor symptoms starting on the day of treatment.
“Accumulation of energy, when it’s focused down, created this lesion in his brain in a place that’s important for tremor control,” Rao said. “So by lesion in that spot in the brain, we were able to see his tremor improve.”
Bender’s excited for his new normal, he said.
“I am 100% happy,” he said.
