That’s what we call duo therapy. In the Centre-Val de Loire region, only a young gastroenterologist offers this intervention, which has been validated since 2004 in France and he is therefore at the Jacques Coeur hospital in Bourges.
In Parkinson’s disease, the brain no longer produces dopamine, the hormone that prevents tremors and slowed movements. The idea, with this intervention, is to implant a probe directly into the body to inject this dopamine. Intervention carried out by Doctor Romain Lasset, gastroenterologist at Bourges hospital: “A probe is placed which goes directly into the stomach and which pushes up to the beginning of the intestine, which is called the duodenum. It makes the intake continuous and it makes the availability of the treatment more effective.”
– Michel Benoit
The operation lasts only thirty minutes. It is reserved for patients on whom dopamine tablets no longer have any effect due to the advance of Parkinson’s disease: “The tablets reach their limit when the disease is advanced admits Doctor Evariste Fanorena, neurologist at the Jacques Cœur hospital center. There are swallowing disorders, also a slowing of gastric evacuation. The drug may be destroyed in the stomach. Here, we target the duodenum to have a continuous and reliable absorption.”
The result is almost miraculous since this patient can walk once more, explains Séverine Binon, Parkinson’s referent nurse at Bourges hospital: “Now he moves, certainly with a walker, but he has gained a lot of autonomy when he had been forced to join an Ehpad. The nurses from the neurology department have been trained to support patients in this care as well as the liberal nurses who learn how to use the pump and recharge it.
The patient, aged around sixty, was able to return to his home today. A nurse comes by every day to recharge the probe with dopamine. The pump has a lifespan of 12 to 18 months. A technique certainly invasive but with convincing results.
