Brave or bizarre? A US man
found a a novel way to help doctors perform a complex brain surgery on him - by
playing his guitar! Actor-musician Brad Carter strummed his one-of-a-kind
handmade guitar for six hours as doctors operated on him. Although Carter had
to put down the guitar when he began experiencing debilitating hand tremors -
his strumming skills came to good use when doctors implanted a wire inside his
head, 'New York Daily News' reported. He used his tunes to guide surgeons
through his brain as they implanted a pacemaker to ease the hand tremors that
had plagued him for the better part of a decade. Carter's fancy fretwork helped
his surgeons locate the best spot for a deep brain stimulation procedure that
they hope will ease tremors in his hands that have kept him from his life's passion.
"I've been a guitarist since 1988. Music is my first love. I'm an actor
for a living, but I always have music to turn to. It's a part of your
soul," Carter, an actor and musician in Los Angeles, told NBC's
"Today". Carter began experiencing the hand tremors seven years ago.
Medications didn't help, and he had to stop performing as a musician. Doctors
diagnosed his condition as a benign essential tremor, and elected to try a
surgical procedure called deep brain stimulation that is also used on patients
with Parkinson's and some seizure disorders. Patients are typically awake for a
portion of the brain surgery, and so was Carter, playing the guitar as doctors
at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) hospital.
Difficulty or inability to write a coherent text message, even in people who have no problem speaking, may become a "vital" tool in diagnosing a type of crippling stroke, according to a new research. Scientists at Henry Ford Hospital focused on a 40-year-old man visiting the metro Detroit area on business who showed signs of "dystextia," a recently coined term for incoherent text messaging that can sometimes be confused with autocorrect garble. But in his case, the man saw nothing wrong with the garble. The patient had no problem with a routine bedside test of his language abilities - including fluency of speech, reading, writing, comprehension and other factors. However, when asked to type a simple text message, he not only produced garble, but he was unable to see it as such. Despite showing only slight facial asymmetry and no other symptoms, doctors determined the man had suffered an acute ischemic stroke, in which a clot or other blockage cuts off blood supply t...
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