Spinal cord stimulation for postural abnormalities in Parkinson's disease: 1-year prospective pilot study

• Published in: BMC neurology Vol. 24; no. 1; p. 167
• Main Authors: Zhou, Liche, Chen, Fangzheng, Pan, Yixin, Wang, Linbin, Xu, Lu, Huang, Peng, Wang, Lijun, Luo, Ningdi, Li, Puyu, Li, Dianyou, Liu, Jun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England BioMed Central Ltd 21-05-2024; BioMed Central; BMC
• Subjects: Aged; Care and treatment; Causes of; Complications and side effects; Diseases; Electric stimulation; Epidural; Female; Humans; Male; Medical research; Medicine, Experimental; Methods; Middle Aged; Movement disorders; Neurodegenerative diseases; Parkinson Disease - complications; Parkinson Disease - physiopathology; Parkinson Disease - therapy; Parkinson's disease; Patient outcomes; Patients; Pilot Projects; Postural abnormalities; Postural Balance - physiology; Posture; Posture disorders; Prospective Studies; Spinal cord; Spinal cord stimulation; Spinal Cord Stimulation - methods; Statistical analysis; Surgery; Thorax; Treatment Outcome; China; Parkinson’s disease; Spinal cord stimulation; Postural abnormalities
• ISSN: 1471-2377; 1471-2377
• DOI: 10.1186/s12883-024-03673-5

Postural abnormalities (PA) are common in the advanced stages of Parkinson's disease (PD), but effective therapies are lacking. A few studies suggested that spinal cord stimulation (SCS) could be a potential therapy whereas its effect is still uncertain. We aimed to investigate whether SCS had potential for benefiting PD patients with PA.
T8-12 SCS was operated on six PD patients with PA and all patients were followed for one year. Evaluations were made before and after SCS. Moreover, three patients were tested separately with SCS on-state and off-state to confirm the efficacy of SCS.
Improvements in lateral trunk flexion degree, anterior thoracolumbar flexion degree and motor function were found after SCS. The improvements diminished while SCS was turned off.
Lower thoracic SCS may be effective for improving PA in PD patients, but further studies are needed to confirm this conclusion.
Chinese Clinical Trial Registry, ChiCTR1900024326, Registered on 6th July 2019; https://www.chictr.org.cn/showproj.aspx?proj=40835 .