Parkinson’s Disease: Vibration Device Can Help With Shaking Tremors
David Putrino, a physical therapist, was working on a vibration device to help deaf people listen to live music when a friend suggested that the same technology could help Parkinson’s patients stop the tremors.
Putrino, director of rehabilitation innovation for New York’s Mount Sinai health system, was interested.
The new device was placed on the wrist of a friend’s father who had Parkinson’s disease and the shaking stopped cold.
Putrino said, “He was a former pianist and sat down and started playing. It was pretty dramatic.”
At that point, Putrino and his colleagues switched gears and began reviewing the new device for Parkinson’s tremors.
You’re on to something, according to recent research. Worn on the wrist or ankle, the device roughly the size and weight of a smartwatch could be a safe and effective solution for Parkinson’s patients to minimize tremors at rest.
Tremors during rest are caused by irregular rhythms in the brain that this technique can change.
Putrino noted that this applies to patients with Parkinson’s disease: “Drugs, and even some of the more invasive procedures like deep brain stimulation therapy (DBS), aim to break the abnormal synchronization between regions of the brain to improve outcomes. Symptoms.”
To make sure the device is safe, 44 people with Parkinson’s have used it on their wrists or ankles with two patterns of vibration, and the feedback has been positive.
As per Putrino, “the patients have not reported any serious adverse events”.
He added, “Some people turned the intensity down while others said it was nice.”
The purpose of the study was not to determine whether the device was working or not, although most participants reported a decrease in tremors when receiving the vibration pulses.
As per Putrino, “sending conflicting messages to the brain to break abnormal synchronicity through the wrist or ankles can help stop the tremors.”
The next step, he says, is to do more research that will compare the device to a regularly used placebo device.
If your follow-up test results are comparable, your device may be there faster than you think.
Putrino said, “There’s no reason this can’t be done in five years as long as the studies continue to be encouraging and we continue to see side effects.”
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The device does not relieve other types of tremors with different neurological origins.
According to him, the researchers want to study the vibration device in connection with spinal cord injuries, strokes, and other neurological diseases. It is currently used to give deaf people the opportunity to listen to live music.
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