Columbus Monthly Special Section: Health Matters

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TARGETED TREATMENTS A look at the latest advancements in personalized medicine being utilized in Central Ohio. By Peter Tonguette

You might call it instant-gratification medicine. When Dr. Angela M. Hardwick, a neurologist at OhioHealth, performs an operation to place a deep-brain stimulation (DBS) implant to treat patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders, like essential tremor, the results can be detected right away. Sometimes, Hardwick will ask a patient—who, until the procedure, had been experiencing unsteadiness

in their hands—to jot down a note on a piece of paper. “When it gets to the right spot, and we program it just right, in the operating room I have them write a note to their family,” says Hardwick, who performs the operation while the patient is awake, numbed by local anesthetic. “It’s an amazing feeling for them. They haven’t seen their handwriting in years—it’s steady, it’s clear. [Patients] most typically write, ‘I love you,’ to their wife.”

SEPTEMBER 2020 COLUMBUS MONTHLY

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