my dad picked up a free paper of the bus he was on today so i was having a little read through and OMG i would love to have this =)
Sheila Cook says doctors have ‘given her back her life’ after she agreed to take part in a pioneering trial.
The 62-year-old had stopped responding to conventional treatment so she was offered ‘deep brain stimulation’, using electrodes implanted via holes drilled in her skull.
Although this provided some temporary respite, she relapsed and went on to be the first to have further surgery on the part of the brain that controls emotion.
‘The effects were remarkable,’ said Mrs Cook, from Torquay, who had the operation a year ago. ‘Within a few weeks my life changed.
‘I cannot thank the clinicians and researchers who worked with me enough – they have given me my life back.’
The treatment was developed by Bristol University and specialists from the city’s world famous Frenchay Hospital.
‘We are very grateful to our patients and their relatives who, in spite of depression destroying their lives, bravely carry on fighting the illness year after year,’ said Dr Andrea Malizia, a consultant senior lecturer at Bristol University. ‘Mrs Cook has been the first patient in the world to have these two treatments.
‘I’m very pleased to see the second treatment has worked well for her and has been maintained.’
A senior nurse, Mrs Cook said that, before she had the groundbreaking treatment, she did not want to leave the house.
‘I’d sit in all day and think bad thoughts,’ she said.
Now she plans to move nearer to London to be closer to her grandchildren, with whom she had little contact during her depression.
‘I’m now rediscovering my family and my wonderful grandchildren,
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to get it done xx
