CHENNAI: A 23-year-old male from Nagpur suffering from progressive myoclonus epilepsy since he was 10 years old, was successfully treated at Gleneagles Health City. The patient underwent surgery and has recovered very well with hardly any symptoms of having this rare type of epilepsy.
Progressive Myoclonus Epilepsy is a rare epilepsy where the individual suffers unsteady walking, uncontrolled sudden jerking of the limbs which can result in multiple falls and dropping of objects from hands, violent shaking of the entire body with unconsciousness, slurred and unclear speech, and drooling of saliva.
Dr Dinesh Nayak, Director of Neurology and Advanced Centre for Epilepsy at the hospital said that although he was on five anti-seizure medications he was still having seizures, was drooling, was unsteady in walking, was having repeated myoclonus, and had severe slurring of speech, resulting in poor quality of life.
“Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) is rarely performed for Progressive Myoclonus epilepsy due to the patient's condition, but there were no other options for this patient's treatment, so we had multiple discussions with his family members and decided to perform Deep Brain Stimulation,” added Dr Dinesh Nayak.
The Deep Brain Stimulation surgery was performed by Dr Nigel Symss, Head of Neurosurgery & team. The surgery took nearly 7 to 8 hours and was done in two stages.
"Dr Ramanan, the anesthetist in-charge, handled the Anesthesia in the surgery and the ICU. The battery was switched on after a few days post the surgery,” said Dr Nigel Symss, Head of Neurosurgery, Gleneagles Health City Chennai.