Who will benefit from surgery?

Surgery can be used to treat Parkinson’s disease (PD), but it is not suitable for everybody.

Any person with PD who is being considered for surgery will undergo a very detailed assessment of their condition, often over 1–2 days. These assessments are carried out to make sure that the person has symptoms that would respond well to surgery, without any unusually high risk of complications. They also provide a valuable opportunity for the healthcare team to discuss all aspects of surgery and ensure that the person with PD and their family have realistic expectations of what the proposed operation can achieve.

People with PD who are likely to benefit from surgery are those who respond well to their PD medication but in whom this response has become unpredictable and/or short-lived, has led to troublesome dyskinesias (restless movements), or has been poorly tolerated (i.e., causing unacceptable side effects).

Surgery has not been shown to improve symptoms that do not respond to dopamine medication – apart from tremor, which can be resistant to medication but generally responds well to surgery.