This is incredible. Naomi Elishuv was a violinist in the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra. Twenty years ago, she was diagnosed with essential tremor and was forced to stop playing. Yesterday, Elishuv was operated on in Israel, to suppress her tremor symptoms. While the surgery was being performed, she returned to playing the violin without disturbance. “It’s a shame that I only heard about the surgery recently. I am now finally returning to life,” Elishuv says. View this inspirational video of her playing Mozart during the surgery. “My greatest love was playing the violin, but unfortunately, until today… my tremor prevented me from playing professionally, and this was very difficult for a woman such as myself, who was used to playing her entire life,” Elishuv explained before she entered the operating room. Professor Yitzhak Fried, the Director of Functional Neurosurgery, who operated on Elishuv, explained the procedure: “we implanted and positioned a brain pacemaker with electrodes in the area of the brain disturbance, which emits impulses to suppress the tremor that was disturbing Elishuv’s daily functioning. The operation was performed under local anesthesia. In order to place the electrode in the optimal location, we wanted her active participation in real-time, so we asked Elishuv to play the violin during the surgery. During the procedure, she did not feel pain because these areas of the brain do not feel pain. In the first phase, before the operation, I did stereotactic planning, which enabled me to identify the exact optimal brain location, within millimeters. That is where I implanted the electrode. “The surgery was performed via a minute hole in the skull, through which the 1.3-millimeter electrode was inserted… I performed electrical stimulation in the centre of the disturbed area and asked Elishuv to report any side effects caused by the stimulation. And, indeed, when we activated the stimulation in the exact location, we found that the tremor disappeared and Elishuv continued to play Mozart — with great emotion, but without the tremor or side effects.”
Posted on: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 13:42:15 +0000
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