In a study of 42 people living with rechargeable brain stimulators, nearly half said they needed help keeping their devices charged, and about 1 in 5 reported that a device had accidentally shut off. For patients whose symptoms are held in check by constant electrical pulses, those numbers are more than a matter of convenience.
The findings were published May 14 in the journal Biophysica. The stakes were illustrated in a case report published earlier this year in Movement Disorders Clinical Practice, in which neurosurgeons at Hannover Medical School in Germany described a woman whose movement disorder returned in public when her rechargeable stimulator unexpectedly ran out of power.
