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Published on: January 6, 2011
Stuttering in Parkinson's disease after deep brain stimulation: A note on dystonia and low-frequency stimulation
Marcelo D Mendonça1, Raquel Barbosa2, Alexandra Seromenho-Santos3
1Neurology Department, Hospital Egas Moniz, Centro Hospitalar de Lisboa Ocidental, Lisbon, Portugal; CEDOC, Nova Medical School/Faculdade de Ciências Médicas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal; Champalimaud Research, Champalimaud Center for the Unknown, Lisbon, Portugal.
Abstract:
Stuttering, a speech fluency disorder, is a rare complication of Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) in Parkinson's Disease (PD). We report a 61 years-old patient with PD, afflicted by severe On and Off dystonia, treated with Subthalamic Nucleus DBS that developed post-DBS stuttering while on 130 Hz stimulation. Stuttering reduction was noted when frequency was changed to 80 Hz, but the previously observed dystonia improvement was lost. There are no reports in literature on patients developing stuttering with low-frequency stimulation. We question if low-frequency stimulation could have a role for managing PD's post-DBS stuttering, and notice that stuttering improvement was associated with dystonia worsening suggesting that they are distinct phenomena.
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