Minnesota Orchestra musician Roger Frisch underwent deep brain stimulation to fix essential tremors.
Concert violinists with tremors in their hand risks losing their entire career.
Roger Frisch, a member of the Minnesota Orchestra, found himself in this position when he was diagnosed with essential tremors in 2009.
In any other profession minor shaking would barely be noticed but, in Roger's line of work, it was devastating. After 40 years as a musician, Roger could no longer bow smoothly.
After some convincing, he agreed to undergo deep brain stimulation at the Mayo Clinic Neural Engineering Lab to try to fix the problem.
Deep brain stimulation is a technique used to aid people with Parkinson's disease, dystonia (neurological movement disorder) and essential tremors, as well as people suffering from OCD, major depression or chronic pain.
Surgeons place electrodes inside the deepest parts of the brain and use electric pulses controlled by a pacemaker to modify neurological responses.
Surgeons implanted electrodes into Roger's thalamus while he was still awake in an attempt to rectify his tremors. There are no pain receptors in the brain so patients are always conscious during brain surgery so that the doctors can monitor their condition.
In Roger's case, the surgeons were concerned that the tremors were so small that they risked placing the electrodes in the wrong position and failing to fix the shaking.
Mayo clinic neural engineer Kevin Bennet devised a clever way to detect whether the electrodes were working. He designed a violin apparatus that Roger could play during surgery so that the doctors could measure his abnormal motions in real time.
Roger played as the doctors inserted the first wire into his brain and fired a jolt of electricity. Roger said he felt a difference and consented to a second wire being inserted, which did the trick and stopped his tremors.
Three weeks after the surgery, Roger was back at work playing his violin as if nothing had happened.
He will have a pacemaker device that controls the amount of stimulation required in his brain for life but Roger can switch the electrodes on and off using a master controller and the effect on his tremors is instantaneous.