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Brain Implants Are 'Life-Changing' For Science Teacher Coping With Essential Tremors

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Some patients have had success treating movement disorders with neurostimulators — devices implanted in the brain during a procedure called deep brain stimulation surgery. (Jens Schlueter/DDP/AFP via Getty Images)
Some patients have had success treating movement disorders with neurostimulators — devices implanted in the brain during a procedure called deep brain stimulation surgery. (Jens Schlueter/DDP/AFP via Getty Images)

People living with movement disorders like Parkinson's disease and essential tremors have to deal with uncontrollable shaking that can make it hard to do something as simple as drink from a cup.

Some patients have had success treating their condition with neurostimulators — devices implanted in the brain during a procedure called deep brain stimulation surgery. The result is something like a pacemaker for the brain.

New research suggests that treatment could also be used to treat seizures in some people with epilepsy.

Here & Now's Tonya Mosley speaks with Cheryl Sansone, who teaches chemistry and biology at Eisenhower High School in Blue Island, Illinois. She had the surgery in 2015 and describes it as "life-changing."

This segment aired on January 6, 2020.

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