Combined thalamic and pallidal deep brain stimulation in diabetic hemiballism/hemichorea

Abstract

Hemiballism/Hemichorea (HH) is a hyperkinetic movement disorder observed mostly after cerebrovascular diseases in elderly patients. Even though the improvement in symptoms would be maintained without treatment, in rare cases, lesioning or DBS (deep brain stimulation) surgery provide a chance on relieving the severe involuntary movements. HH is a more rarely reported entity as a diabetic complication and we encountered very few cases treated with surgical intervention for diabetic HH. A 75-year-old female patient with type-II diabetes mellitus was admitted for left-sided disabling involuntary movement despite being medically treated for six months. A GPi (globus pallidus internus) and thalamic Vim (ventral intermediate) nucleus targeted DBS surgery was performed. Complete resolution was achieved with combined stimulation at 1.7 mA of thalamic Vim nucleus and 2.4 mA of GPi. Combined stimulation of thalamic Vim nucleus and GPi resulted in an effective treatment method for HH secondary to diabetes in our case. Even if the rarity of the cases treated surgically withholds us to come to a certain conclusion, it provides a new option to treat HH to our experience.