DELRAY BEACH, FLORIDA — Delray Medical Center cut the ribbon on its newest high-tech machine last week that targets brain areas to treat movement disorders such as essential tremor and tremor-dominant Parkinson’s disease.

The machine can stop the involuntary trembling of the heat and hands experienced by people with neurological disorders in one treatment using focused ultrasound guided by MRI.

Neurosurgeons at Delray Medical Center already have been treating patients with uncontrollable tremors or stiffness with the earlier version of the machine developed by Insightec. During treatment, ultrasound waves enter a patient’s skull to precisely heat and destroy specific regions deep inside the brain that generate tremors.

Typically, the tremor is gone immediately and the patients go home the same day with minimal complications, said Dr. Lloyd Zucker, chief of neurosurgery at Delray Medical Center. Neurosurgeons at Delray began using the original machine 10 years ago as an alternative to surgery.

A video shown at the Thursday ribbon-cutting for the new, modernized machine highlighted a patient with Parkinson’s Disease whose hand went from shaking to still in a matter of minutes. As the patient […]