A 32-year-old man, diagnosed with a rare disorder with symptoms of tightness of hands and legs and having difficulty in walking, like in Parkinson's disease, was successfully treated using advanced treatment protocols at a hospital in Hyderabad.

Doctors at the hospital in Hyderabad performed a complex procedure called auto guide implantation for Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) using Artificial Intelligence on him on March 3. It is claimed to be the world's first such complex procedure and doctors say this is likely to revolutionise the treatment of brain ailments linked to Parkinson's disease and movement disorders.

The Artificial Intelligence-integrated robotic system available at the hospital helps in various brain surgeries including epilepsy surgery, brain tumour biopsy, deep brain stimulation for Parkinson's disease, movement disorders and some psychiatric disorders.

"More than six years back, the patient felt tremors in right hand, which increased with age and had great difficulty even in holding even a teacup, and with its progression, he was not even able to walk forcing him to give up his job. This condition required a surgical intervention to rectify the anomaly in the brain and had to be done with absolute precision.

"Accuracy is key while performing deep brain stimulation, and the highly skilled team of neurosurgeons and neurologists who specialise in Parkinson's disease and movement disorders, aided by an extremely accurate robotic tool, were able to reach the exact location inside the brain and treat the problem," said Dr Manas Panigrahi, HOD - Neuro Surgery who led a team of neurosurgeons in developing a program to provide the latest versions of the treatment.

According to doctors, the Stealth Autoguide robot helps calculate the exact position and trajectory needed to reach the targeted area of the brain. The neurosurgeon places a very thin wire with small electrodes on its tip that will deliver electrical stimulation to a small volume of tissue. A standard accuracy registration for deep brain stimulation usually falls between 0.8 and 1.2 millimetres.

By using the Stealth Auto guide robot, on recent surgery the Parkinson's group at the hospital has registered accuracy within 0.2, which is the first best in the nation according to Auto guide data. That's about the fraction thickness of a hair.

If the surgery is done manually, the neurosurgeon himself needs to calculate the coordinates, he has to fix the leads with his own hands into the brain. With Artificial intelligence, Autoguide robots fix the coordinates based on the feed from the surgeons. It performs the procedure according to the given instructions, with utmost precision and accuracy.

The Parkinson's Centre at the hospital is one of the very few places in Asia where such complex procedures could have been possible. Manas Panigrahi was ably supported by Dr Dhanunjay, Consultant Neurosurgeon, and Dr Praveen Kumar Yada, Consultant Neurologist, along with the highly skilled nursing staff at the hospital.

Post completion of the procedure, the patient is now completely fine and is now able to do everything he ever wanted to do.

"I had experienced tremors in 2016. I was doing a private job which had to be left because of my health condition. Initially, I went to different doctors and used Allopathic, Homeo and Ayurvedic medicines but none of them gave relief. When I searched on Google, I came to know about Dr Manas Panigrahi. He said it is Parkinson's disease. After the DBS, tremors have stopped completely," said the patient who thanked the doctors and is now looking forward to joining his job soon.