• Dudley O'Sullivan and Malcolm Pell.
• Departments of Neurology and Neurosurgery, St Vincent's Hospital, Darlinghurst, NSW, Australia. dudleyo@bigpond.com
• Brain Res. Bull. 2009 Feb 16;78(2-3):119-21.

AbstractIn 1994 we commenced deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the thalamus for patients with severe tremor. This was done under the guidance of Professor Alim Benabid from Grenoble, France, who pioneered the technique. In the beginning we commenced DBS of the thalamus for patients with severe tremulous Parkinson's disease, essential tremor, and in one case, severe post-traumatic tremor. In all, we had 28 patients for whom the procedure was performed for tremulous Parkinson's disease, six patients with essential tremor and one patient with post-traumatic tremor. In 1997, again under the guidance of Professor Benabid, we commenced bilateral subthalamic nucleus stimulation (STN) for patients with severe Parkinson's disease. We were the second unit in Australia to become established for these procedures. A total of 45 patients have undergone STN DBS and have been followed up on a regular basis by the same neurologist (DOS). The surgical complications and long-term complications, including hardware problems will be reviewed retrospectively, as well as the long-term benefits of these surgical procedures.

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