# Parkinson's Implant



## SafetyPro2 (May 10, 2004)

Just got back from an interesting call. Toned out as a 60-some year old male suffering from a stroke with right side paralysis, facial droop and slurred speech. Upon making contact with the patient, he reported that he had Parkinson's and believed his "deep brain stimulation implants" (essentially neuro pacemakers) either had malfunctioned or lost power. He was complaining of blurred/double vision, and slight right-side motor control impairment (equal, strong grips though). Had slight slurred speech, but no facial droop that I saw. Vitals were all pretty good...BP of 130/88, pulse of 92, respirations of 22, PERL, good O2 sat.

Most interesting thing was when we got him to the hospital and they hooked him up to their monitor, it showed a wild ECG (almost like a super-fast V-fib) and a heart rate of 247. We figure it was the electrical activity of his implants being picked up.

Anyone had any experience with these types of implants, and if so, what sort of symptoms have you seen.


----------



## SafetyPro2 (May 21, 2004)

Got some more info when I was at the ER a couple days later. Nurse who was there that night came up to me and told me that his implant on the affected side had somehow (they weren't sure how) become demagnetized. Apparently, all they had to do was remagnetize it and everything started working fine again.


----------



## MMiz (May 28, 2004)

I swore I replied to this one earlier, I guess it didn't get posted.

I've never heard of such an implant, and all the EMTs I've talked to since I first read your post also haven't heard of it.

I would assume you put him on a Non-Rebreather and transported?  I wonder how our ALS crews would have responded to this one.  I'll have to ask them next time I work.  In EMS this is one of the times where you would have to think outside the box, though treatment on a BLS level wouldn't really change either way.

Diid you transport BLS?  Any idea how he was after they remagnetized it, did he have any lasting symptoms?

That's an interesting case.


----------



## SafetyPro2 (May 30, 2004)

Yeah, non-rebreather at 15 LPM, did a full set of vitals and neuros, and Code 2 transport. He pretty much knew what was going on...figured it was either a "loose wire" (his words) or bad battery. I wasn't too concerned that it was a stroke because it wasn't really presenting as such and because he did have this history.

According to the nurse, as soon as they "remagnetized" him, he was back to normal.

A poster on another board I read said that he saw an Oprah episode on these implants and had a patient with them on. They turned the implants off and he showed all the typical Parkinson's symptoms. Turned them back on, and he was totally normal.


----------

