Music meets medicine as Parkinson’s patient plays clarinet during brain surgery

LONDON — Music met medicine when a patient played a clarinet solo while undergoing brain surgery for Parkinson’s disease and proved the treatment worked in real time.

Denise Bacon, 65, saw her finger movements improve instantly during four hours of deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgery, while staying awake and playing the musical instrument, King’s College Hospital in London said in a press release on Tuesday.

The retired speech therapist was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2014. Since then, she has had difficulty walking, swimming, dancing and playing her beloved clarinet, as the progressive neurological disorder that affects movement took over her body.

To help Bacon regain these abilities, Keyoumars Ashkan, a professor of neurosurgery, performed DBS on him, implanting electrodes in Bacon’s brain and monitoring his body’s reaction in real time.

“Stimulating electrodes are placed in deep structures of the brain,” Ashkan said in the hospital press release, adding that it is “a long-established procedure to improve motor symptoms in patients with movement disorders.”

Although the brain itself has no pain receptors, Bacon was given local anesthesia to numb his scalp and skull, while doctors made holes half the size of a small coin in his skull and implanted stimulating electrodes inside.

A pulse generator, similar to a pacemaker, was then connected to the electrodes to send targeted electrical signals to the brain.

“As an avid clarinetist, it was suggested to Denise that she bring her clarinet into the operating room to see if the procedure would improve her ability to play, which was one of Denise’s main goals during the surgery,” Ashkan said.

An amateur musician, Bacon played the instrument with the East Grinstead Concert Band until symptoms of Parkinson’s disease prevented her from continuing five years ago.

However, while playing during surgery, she noticed an immediate improvement in her hand movements.

“I remember that my right hand was able to move much more easily once the stimulation was applied, which improved my ability to play the clarinet, which I was thrilled about,” she said in the press release.

Brain surgeries usually require general anesthesia, but some procedures require the patient to be awake so doctors can ensure they do not damage vital brain functions.

This is not the first such procedure Ashkan has performed at King’s College Hospital. In 2020, a violinist played jazz classics while a tumor was removed from her brain.

Bacon also said she saw early progress in her walking and is now looking forward to returning to activities such as swimming and dancing.

Over the next 20 years, the pulse generator implanted in the chest will help Bacon by constantly providing her with electrical impulses and giving her the chance to return to the hobbies and passions she loves, King’s College Hospital said in the release.