Implanting a chip into the brain can help people with Parkinson’s disease control symptoms associated with the disease and improve their quality of life, a doctor said yesterday after tracking a patient with such a treatment for a decade.
The man, surnamed Tseng (曾), was in his prime when he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease two decades ago. Even after taking drugs for nearly a decade, his condition continued to deteriorate and he decided to accept the implant to control his illness.
Lin Hsin-jung, superintendent at China Medical University Beigang Hospital, said the body of a person with Parkinson’s disease is like a vehicle which has brakes that are too strong and hampers free movement.
Implanting the chip into the patient’s brain will stimulate a safe and effective electric current that will mitigate the “brakes phenomenon,” Lin said.
Tseng’s symptoms began to show when he was only 37. In the beginning, his limbs would shake involuntarily. He was advised to take drugs regularly, but after more than eight years, he had to increase dosage and the side effects disturbed his sleep. He developed hallucinations and vomited sometimes. His weight dropped to 50kg.
After the deep brain stimulation surgery, he has cut his drugs, limb shaking, body rigidness and other symptoms. He could even work and tour around with his wife and he is now happier than before.
Parkinson’s disease is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system, and the disease is more common among the elderly.
Taiwan has 40,000 people with Parkinson’s disease.
Most are given drugs in the initial stage, but there are commonly side effects after taking the drugs for many years, Lin said.
He said that about 600 Parkinson’s disease patients have received deep brain stimulation in the country.
Although the medical equipment to conduct such surgery is expensive, he said the quality of life of patients has greatly improved and they cut the cost of hiring caretakers.
“In this light, the surgery is economically more efficient than simply giving patients medicines,” Lin said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,