Neurostimulation of the subthalamic nucleus reduces levodopa-related motor complications in advanced Parkinson's disease. We compared this treatment plus medication with medical management. In this randomized-pairs trial, we enrolled 156 patients with advanced Parkinson's disease and severe motor symptoms. The primary end points were the changes from baseline to six months in the quality of life, as assessed by the Parkinson's Disease Questionnaire (PDQ-39), and the severity of symptoms without medication, according to the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale, part III (UPDRS-III). Pairwise comparisons showed that neurostimulation, as compared with medication alone, caused greater improvements from baseline to six months in the PDQ-39 (50 of 78 pairs, P=0.02) and the UPDRS-III (55 of 78, P<0.001), with mean improvements of 9.5 and 19.6 points, respectively. Neurostimulation resulted in improvements of 24 to 38 percent in the PDQ-39 subscales for mobility, activities of daily living, emotional well-being, stigma, and bodily discomfort. Serious adverse events were more common with neurostimulation than with medication alone (13 percent vs. 4 percent, P<0.04) and included a fatal intracerebral hemorrhage. The overall frequency of adverse events was higher in the medication group (64 percent vs. 50 percent, P=0.08). In this six-month study of patients under 75 years of age with severe motor complications of Parkinson's disease, neurostimulation of the subthalamic nucleus was more effective than medical management alone. (ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00196911.)

During the last 30 years, deep brain stimulation (DBS) has evolved into the clinical standard of care as a highly effective treatment for advanced Parkinson’s disease. Careful patient selection, an individualized anatomical target localization and meticulous evaluation of stimulation parameters for chronic DBS are crucial requirements to achieve optimal results. Current hardware-related advances allow for a more focused, individualized stimulation and hence may help to achieve optimal clinical results. However, current advances also increase the degrees of freedom for DBS programming and therefore challenge the skills of healthcare providers. This review gives an overview of the clinical effects of DBS, the criteria for patient, target, and device selection, and finally, offers strategies for a structured programming approach.