Electrical cords from its internal motors snake across the floor. Charles Jarrett hates the chair. It's a useful piece of equipment, but for Jarrett, it's a reminder of everything he has lost. Jarrett so much misses the dancing, driving and golf he used to enjoy, and so loathes the help he now requires for basic functions, that he has decided to take a radical step. But anything is better than what I got.
Drugs initially quell the symptoms but over time cause violent side effects.
Jarrett has had the disorder since 1974. On his worst days, the former Navy aviator and hospital billing manager cannot dress himself, walk up stairs or turn over in bed. Pallidotomy, which doesn't cure the disease but does reduce its symptoms, is very popular - and somewhat controversial. Yet it's revival is so new that doctors disagree on the best way to perform the operation - and procedures that have gone badly, striking the wrong areas of the brain, have left patients paralyzed, comatose and partially blind. Jarrett's operation at Emory could improve the procedure's odds.