Division of Neurosurgery

Department of Surgery

Neuromodulation Program

Improving quality of life for neuromodulation patients

Director
Dr. Lutz Weise

Program coordinator
Christine Potvin

Program RN                          
Peggy Flynn

Team members

Dr. Lutz Weise, Neurosurgeon
Dr. Sean Christie, Neurosurgeon
Dr. Ian Beauprie, Anesthesiologist/Pain Specialist
Christine Potvin, Program Coordinator
Nichola Ayles, Program RN
Ron Hill, Neurosurgery Technology Coordinator
Murray Hong, Neurosurgery OR/Technical Specialist
Susan Morris, Neurophysiologist, Intraoperative Neurophysiological monitoring
Dr. John Fisk, Neuropsychologist
Dr. Mark Rubens, Psychiatry
Dr. David King, Neurologist (movement disorders)
Dr. Kerry Schoffer, Neurologist (movement disorders)
Dr. Roger McKelvey, Neurologist (movement disorders)
Dr. Heather Rigby, Neurologist (movement disorders)
Pam Doucette, Administrative Assistant

Off Site Collaborators:
Dr Renju Kuriakose, (Neurologist NB)
Dr Kyna Squarey, (Neurologist NFLD)
 

Our neuromodulation program provides neuromodulation care to the people of Atlantic Canada (population ~2.3M). The program focuses on improvements to quality of life primarily for people suffering from movement disorders, complex pain syndromes, and spasticity. The patient population includes patients with implantable neurostimulators for deep brain (DBS), cortical, spinal cord (SCS), and peripheral stimulation. We currently follow 215 people with stimulators for movement disorders, and 233 with stimulators for pain.

In addition to regular deep brain stimulation rounds in which patients are reviewed by the team and treatment options discussed, we run a complex pain clinic in which patients are seen and evaluated by both a neurosurgeon and a complex pain anaesthesiologist, and a treatment plan decided upon.

With their consent, patient information including quality of life surveys and intraoperative microelectrode recording data are kept on a database for analysis.

Various research activities are in progress, including electrophysiological and tractography studies in patients undergoing Deep Brain Stimulation. Ethics application was obtained on “Correlation of tractography and motor evoked potentials in deep brain stimulation” and we have started recruiting the first patients. Further projects include the evaluation of the impact of disease lateralization on imaging characteristics such as tractography.