Ultrasound stimulation to unfreeze gait

Treatments to help people with Parkinson’s whose gait freezes when they walk or pass through doorways have so far had limited success.

To restore people’s independence and freedom of movement, Dr. Jean-Francois Nankoo, a post-doctoral fellow at Toronto’s University Health Network, is trying a new approach.

He’s using low-intensity sound waves from an ultrasound machine to target the cerebellum, an area of the brain that appears to be involved in freezing.

By focusing the sound waves directly on the back of the head where the cerebellum resides, Nankoo believes he can stimulate cells in that area of the brain that are already working hard to compensate for the damage Parkinson’s has done.

“The cerebellum tends towards being a corrector of movement,” says Nankoo. “We think that in those people (with freezing of gait), this area of the cerebellum is increasing its activity, trying to correct some sort of malfunction.”

Nankoo believes the focused ultrasound waves will give the target cells an extra boost to help unfreeze people’s gait.

To test his theory, Nankoo will place a small, portable ultrasound on the back of the heads of people who experience freezing of gait. He’ll stimulate the cerebellum for one to two minutes.

After the painless procedure, Nankoo will measure people’s gait as they walk around, charting any improvement in freezing.

If Nankoo’s treatment successfully unblocks freezing of gait, even for a short period of time, his research will span larger clinical trials. He’ll then go on to investigate how long the sound wave stimulation should last, and how frequently it must be re-applied.

Eventually, he hopes researchers could create a small, portable ultrasound for treatment in doctor’s offices or even at home.

Nankoo was drawn to research involving Parkinson’s because he realizes how central movement is to the basic human experience.

“It’s very important to me to resolve this issue that some patients cannot move, or have difficulty moving, or their body is not moving in the way they want to move,” he says.

If Nankoo’s ultrasound treatment is successful, people with Parkinson’s could regain more independence and experience a better quality of life, he says.