美国国家公共电台 NPR How Highly Focused Sound Waves Steadied A Farmer's Trembling Hand

 

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Now we turn to a story of a man whose hands got so shaky, he couldn't eat with a spoon and he struggled to write legibly.

ALAN DAMBACH: My signature was so bad, and my writing was just atrocious.

MARTIN: NPR's Jon Hamilton reports on a new treatment that helped Alan Dambach control the condition known as essential tremor¹.

JON HAMILTON, BYLINE²: Alan Dambach was in his late 50s when he noticed how unsteady his hands had become. Gradually, it got hard for him to fix the machinery³ at his family's tree farm in western Pennsylvania. And simple things, like eating and drinking, became an adventure.

DAMBACH: Salad bars were a no-no.

HAMILTON: But Dambach says it was his handwriting that finally made him realize he had to do something.

DAMBACH: One day I was over at our business, and I was writing an order. And one of my foremen said, why don't you let me write that for you?

HAMILTON: Dambach didn't have a disease, like Parkinson's. He'd simply inherited genes⁴ that made his hands shaky as he got older. The condition is called essential tremor, or familial tremor, and it affects more than 7 million people in the U.S. Dambach tried drugs. They helped for a while. He considered surgery to get an implanted device called a deep brain stimulator⁵.

DAMBACH: And I thought, no way. This isn't going to work for me. I'm still too active.

HAMILTON: Then in his late 60s, Dambach heard about a new treatment called focused ultrasound, and he found a brain surgeon named Howard Eisenberg who was using the technique. Eisenberg is a professor at the University of Maryland. He says Dambach's story is pretty typical of the patients he treats.

HOWARD EISENBERG: So these are people, they don't have just a tremor. It's a disabling tremor. These are people who have actually had to change their lives.

HAMILTON: Focused ultrasound reduces tremors⁶ by sending high-frequency sound waves right through the skull⁷ to destroy specific areas of brain tissue. Eisenberg says it's an outpatient procedure, but not a trivial one.

EISENBERG: Heating up part of your brain and killing⁸ brain cells seems invasive to me, but it doesn't have the same feeling to patients as surgery. There are no incisions⁹. You don't go to the operating room.

HAMILTON: Instead, patients are placed in an MRI scanner to figure out which brain areas to zap. Then they are fitted with a device that can focus sound waves on those areas. Dambach says during his treatment, Eisenberg and his team would administer a burst of ultrasound then bring him out of the MRI tube to see how he was doing.

DAMBACH: They gave me a bottle of water to pretend I was drinking. And every time I came out, it shook less.

HAMILTON: Studies show the treatment generally reduces tremors by at least half. Charlene Aldrich, who works with Eisenberg at the University of Maryland, says that makes a big difference. She shows me the drawings made by several patients who were asked to trace a circular pattern before and after the treatment.

CHARLENE ALDRICH: So you can see here, they cannot stay within the lines. They cannot draw a circle. This is actually a scratch over it. And here, they follow the lines symmetrically like you and I would do.

HAMILTON: The procedure isn't perfect. So far, it's only being used to treat one side of the brain, which means it can only reduce tremor in one hand. Also, there are risks. Some patients experience numbness¹⁰ or problems with balance afterward¹¹. And, even though the procedure is approved by the Food and Drug Administration, many insurers still don't cover the cost, which is about $40,000. For Alan Dambach, though, focused ultrasound was the right call. He says at the end of his treatment, he was exhausted¹².

DAMBACH: But the next day, I had to take the payroll¹³ checks to the bank and I had to sign them. I just was so happy my signature was back.

HAMILTON: That was more than a year ago, and Dambach says his signing hand is still rock steady. Jon Hamilton, NPR News.

1 tremor   

n.震动，颤动，战栗，兴奋，地震

参考例句：

• There was a slight tremor in his voice.他的声音有点颤抖。
• A slight earth tremor was felt in California.加利福尼亚发生了轻微的地震。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 machinery   

n.(总称)机械，机器；机构

参考例句：

• Has the machinery been put up ready for the broadcast?广播器材安装完毕了吗？
• Machinery ought to be well maintained all the time.机器应该随时注意维护。

4 genes   

n.基因( gene的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• You have good genes from your parents, so you should live a long time. 你从父母那儿获得优良的基因，所以能够活得很长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Differences will help to reveal the functions of the genes. 它们间的差异将会帮助我们揭开基因多种功能。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 生物技术的世纪

5 stimulator   

n.刺激物，刺激者

参考例句：

• Men also have hair dryers and, if they suffer from baldness, they use a growth stimulator, buy hairpieces, or have hair transplanted from the hirsute part of the scalp to the bare areas. 男士也有他们的吹风机，而且如果他们秃顶的话，还会用毛发生长剂、买假发，或者把头发从密集的地方移植到谢顶的地方。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Objective To design electrical stimulator for epileptic rats experiment based on MSP430. 目的：设计基于MSP430的用于大鼠癫痫实验的电刺激器。 来自互联网

6 tremors   

震颤( tremor的名词复数 )； 战栗； 震颤声； 大地的轻微震动

参考例句：

• The story was so terrible that It'sent tremors down my spine. 这故事太可怕，它使我不寒而栗。
• The story was so terrible that it sent tremors down my spine. 这故事太可怕，它使我不寒而栗。

7 skull   

n.头骨；颅骨

参考例句：

• The skull bones fuse between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five.头骨在15至25岁之间长合。
• He fell out of the window and cracked his skull.他从窗子摔了出去，跌裂了颅骨。

8 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

9 incisions   

n.切开，切口( incision的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Cruciate incisions heal poorly and are not required. 不需要愈合差的十字形切口。 来自辞典例句
• After two days red incisions appear on their bodies. 一两天内身体会出现粉红色的损伤。 来自电影对白

10 numbness   

n.无感觉，麻木，惊呆

参考例句：

• She was fighting off the numbness of frostbite. 她在竭力摆脱冻僵的感觉。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Sometimes they stay dead, causing' only numbness. 有时，它们没有任何反应，只会造成麻木。 来自时文部分

11 afterward   

adv.后来；以后

参考例句：

• Let's go to the theatre first and eat afterward. 让我们先去看戏，然后吃饭。
• Afterward,the boy became a very famous artist.后来，这男孩成为一个很有名的艺术家。

12 exhausted   

adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的

参考例句：

• It was a long haul home and we arrived exhausted.搬运回家的这段路程特别长，到家时我们已筋疲力尽。
• Jenny was exhausted by the hustle of city life.珍妮被城市生活的忙乱弄得筋疲力尽。

13 payroll   

n.工资表，在职人员名单，工薪总额

参考例句：

• His yearly payroll is $1.2 million.他的年薪是120万美元。
• I can't wait to get my payroll check.我真等不及拿到我的工资单了。