An Essential Capability of the Gamma Knife

Nov. 10, 2009 - PRLog -- Samuel Adams, Magnus Berg, Oliver Cromwell, Katharine Hepburn, and Eugene O'Neill all suffered from a disease that had no known cause and is considered the most common of all movement disorders.

The disorder, Essential Tremor (ET), affects millions of children and adults.  It is not caused by a neurological condition, injury, or side effect of a medication and can become debilitating over time.  ET most often affects the hands, but may also affect the head and neck, face, jaw, tongue, voice (causing a shaking or quivering sound), and the trunk.  ET is a rhythmic, back-and-forth or to-and-from movement that is caused by an involuntary (uncontrollable) contraction of muscles.

The episodes and duration of ET vary from hour to hour and day to day.  Most people with ET have an episode when the body or a part of the body is held in a certain position (referred to as postural tremor) or when performing a particular action such as writing or eating (action-specific tremor).  Approximately 1 in 20 people older than age 40 and 1 in 5 people over 65 have ET.  It is estimated that ET is eight to ten times more common than Parkinson's.  Only stroke disease is more common.

ET can cause people to need to stop working or switch what types of jobs they have and can become severely disabling and impair people’s abilities to dress, feed or care for themselves or others.  Many patients with ET receive medical therapy that is often ineffective in controlling the tremor, so other options must be explored, such as Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) or radiofrequency thalamotomy.

South Nassau Communities Hospital uses the Gamma Knife® to treat ET.  Gamma Knife Thalamotomy (GKT) is a safe and precise, non-invasive intervention that has proven to produce life altering improvements in otherwise unmanageable cases of ET.  GKT treats the thalamus, a tiny area of the brain that controls some involuntary movements.

After GKT, 90% of patients with ET have experienced a clinically meaningful improvement in their ET score, with 50-78% of patients reporting either no or very slight intermittent ET.  Patients with multiple sclerosis have also reported significant improvement with their ET, increasing their ability to perform acts of daily living (routine activities that people tend do everyday without needing assistance. There are six basic ADLs: eating, bathing, dressing, toileting, transferring (walking) and continence.  The results for GKT have shown to be long lasting as well, while the risks of the treatment may include transient numbness or weakness.

The Long Island Gamma Knife at South Nassau Communities Hospital is the only facility on Long Island able to perform this cutting edge procedure to treat tremor.  South Nassau was the first (and is currently the only) hospital on Long Island to use the Gamma Knife.  Since opening Long Island Gamma Knife in 2002, nearly 1,000 patients have received Gamma Knife treatment at South Nassau, including patients with trigeminal neuralgia, arteriovenous malformations (AVM's) and a wide variety of brain tumors such as pituitary tumors, acoustic neuromas, meningiomas, metastatic brain tumors, and primary brain tumors.

South Nassau has a multidisciplinary team consisting of first-rate neurosurgeons, radiation oncologists, physicists, and nurses, who are specially trained in performing Gamma Knife procedures.  Long Island Gamma Knife’s peerless track record and tradition of excellence is attributable to the team’s acumen and experience and commitment to developing patient-centered treatment plans that maximize the benefits of the Gamma Knife.

South Nassau invested in this potentially life-saving technology, it was with the knowledge that it would be of great benefit to the communities served by the hospital and that it gave South Nassau the capability to effectively and efficiently treat a gamut of debilitating conditions and life-threatening brain tumors, malformations, and conditions.  For additional information on the Long Island Gamma Knife, or to arrange for an evaluation, please call 1-866-LI GAMMA.

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South Nassau Communities Hospital is one of the region’s largest hospitals, with 435 beds, more than 875 physicians and 2,600 employees. Located in Oceanside, NY, the hospital is an acute-care, not-for-profit teaching hospital that provides state-of-the-art care in cardiac, oncologic, orthopedic, bariatric, pain management, mental health and emergency services. In addition to its extensive outpatient specialty centers, South Nassau is a designated Stroke Center, boasts Long Island’s first and only Gamma Knifeâ and provides emergency and elective angioplasty. South Nassau is designated as a Comprehensive Community Cancer Center by the American College of Surgeons and is recognized as a Bariatric Surgery Center of Excellence by the American Society of Bariatric Surgery.