Fenton Woman to be Featured on WDIV-TV Channel 4 Special

The unavoidable affects of aging. Many of these are more than just skin deep.

But today, doctors and researchers are finding new answers for many neurological problems that were once thought to be an inevitable part of getting older. These new answers are leading to lives that are longer and healthier.

Physicians and surgeons at Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital are collaborating to create answers for some of medicine’s toughest cases: Essential tremor, movement disorders, back pain and balance. Using both surgical and non-surgical treatments, many of the effects of these problems are being eliminated.

This week’s Minds of Medicine: “Life to the Fullest: Solutions for Aging Gracefully,” scheduled to air at 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 12 on WDIV-TV Channel 4, is the latest in a series of medical shows locally produced.

Hosted by Paul W. Smith, morning radio personality for WJR AM 760, Minds of Medicine provides an inside look at the doctors and nurses at one of the nation’s top-rated hospitals.

The show will follow Patrick Terry of Holly, Mich., who spent decades living with essential tremor, a condition that kept him from doing many of the things we often take for granted such as eating out or even shaving. After exhausting every possible medical solution, he is left with one last option – a brain surgery that, if successful, could erase a disorder that has been a part of his life for more than 40 years.

Using deep brain stimulation, a surgical team led by Jason Schwalb, M.D., director of Movement Disorder and Behavioral Neurosurgery, works to disrupt the electrical circuit that is creating Terry’s tremor. Terry’s neurologist is world-renowned movement disorders expert Peter Lewitt, M.D.

Saturday’s program also will feature Pamela Kenny of Fenton, Mich., who undergoes spine surgery to help eliminate years of back pain. Her surgeon, Mike Chedid, M.D., and his team perform a delicate, minimally-invasive surgery to alleviate her pain.

Creating incisions that are a fraction of the size of traditional surgery, Dr. Chedid repairs the discs and bones surrounding the spine to alleviate pressure and create new stability in the back.

In addition, this episode of Minds of Medicine will showcase a unique approach to treating balance problems at Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital, in which specialists in neurology, gerontology and ENT all work together under one roof.

In what normally would take weeks or months of appointments, doctors can deliver answers almost immediately – saving time and hassle for patients like Kathleen Tenaglia of Farmington, Mich.

The show follows Ms. Teneglia as doctors examine all the possible causes of her imbalance, including multiples tests with an audiologist to determine how the inner ear may be involved.

An encore presentation of Minds of Medicine: “Life to the Fullest: Solutions for Aging Gracefully” will air at 12:30 p.m., Monday, Nov. 14 on WDIV-Ch. 4.

*Information obtained from Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital.