Skip to content
  • Happy Health
  • Happy Mindset
  • Animal Wonders
  • About Us
    • Team
  • Subscribe
Menu
  • Happy Health
  • Happy Mindset
  • Animal Wonders
  • About Us
    • Team
  • Subscribe
Happy News

She Played This Instrument During Her Brain Surgery

Denise Bacon, a 65-year-old retired speech therapist from East Sussex with Parkinson’s disease, played clarinet during four-hour brain surgery and experienced instant improvement in her finger movements as electrical current reached her brain. She had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2014 and had to stop playing in the East Grinstead Concert Band five years ago when the disease affected her ability to walk, swim, dance, and play her beloved instrument. Professor Keyoumars Ashkan performed deep brain stimulation at King’s College Hospital, making holes half the size of a five pence piece in her skull after placing a frame on her head that acted like a sat nav to guide electrodes to precise positions. Ms Bacon stayed awake with only local anaesthetic to numb her scalp and skull, allowing doctors to see results in real time.

The moment stimulation was delivered, her right hand moved with much more ease and she could play the clarinet again, something that delighted both her and the surgical team. Deep brain stimulation uses electrodes implanted in the brain and is suitable for some patients with disorders like Parkinson’s, though not everyone qualifies for the procedure. Ms Bacon says she’s already experiencing improvements in her ability to walk and is keen to get back in the swimming pool and on the dance floor to see if those abilities have improved too. Professor Ashkan said they were delighted to see the instant improvement in her hand movements and her ability to play once the brain stimulation began working.

PrevPrevious80 Year Old Finishes World Championship
NextChild Writes NASA Asking For Job And Gets ResponseNext

Recent Articles

Happy News

Scientists May Have Finally “Seen” Dark Matter

May 9, 2026

For nearly a century, dark matter has been one of the greatest mysteries in all of science. We know it exists as it makes up an estimated 85% of the universe’s total mass and acts as invisible gravitational scaffolding holding galaxies together, but no one has ever directly observed it.

Read More
Happy News

Coral Reefs Are Hiding An Almost Entirely Unstudied Universe Of Potential Medicine

May 9, 2026

Scientists at the University of Galway and an international consortium have discovered that coral reefs contain an almost entirely unstudied universe of microbial life, publishing a study in Nature that reconstructed the genomes of 645 microbial species from 99 coral reefs across 32 Pacific islands, with more than 99 percent

Read More
Happy News

A Rare Superbloom Is Turning Part Of Redwood National Park Purple And There Are Only Weeks To See It

May 9, 2026

Something extraordinary and fleeting is happening right now in Northern California, where the Bald Hills grasslands above the redwood canopy in Redwood National Park have erupted into a rare lupine superbloom, turning a stretch of elevated landscape off a remote road near Orick into a sweeping sea of purple, blue,

Read More
« Previous Next »
  • Privacy Notice
  • Accessibility Notice
  • Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
  • Unsubscribe
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Privacy Notice
  • Accessibility Notice
  • Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
  • Unsubscribe
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
Copyright © 2026 HappyNews.