Objective: To assess the effectiveness of preoperative DBS patient education and postoperative DBS clinical support through monitoring of unscheduled patient and others phone requests in the post operative phase.

Background: DBS is a demonstrated safe and effective treatment for movement disorders. Treatment using DBS is an elective procedure that requires ongoing clinical support from the implanting clinical team. The implanted patient and their support network also need to commit to taking responsibility for monitoring symptoms, notifying the implanting team or clinic of changes in therapy or symptoms. All of these aspects are important while being mindful that the majority of disorders treated with DBS are chronic and progressive. We are a private neurology practice servicing DBS patients for the past 10 years. Our centre supports more than 750 DBS patients. A preoperative information and education program is provided prior to the DBS procedure, but our clinic receives a high volume of unscheduled phone requests for additional support regarding DBS treatment.

Methods: This an evaluation of current DBS clinical care provision. We monitored the number of phone calls over a 3 month period. Calls were received in addition to post operative scheduled appointments. Clinical appointment schedules are: weekly face to face or phone consultations for 1 month, monthly face to face consultations for 3 months, regular 6 monthly consultations with the neurologist and DBS nurses.

Results: From February to April 2015 unscheduled phone requests =393. The majority (80%) were made by the patient. Remaining calls (17%) were from support persons, health care professionals =3%. 70% of phone calls related to clinical queries and 30% related to technical aspects of DBS therapy. Unscheduled phone requests were highest on Mondays and Tuesdays with least number of calls received on Fridays.

Conclusions: 3 key points were identified in this pilot evaluation. (1) there is a need for industry to provide technical phone support (2) preoperative patient education content needs to be reinforced and individualised throughout the postoperative period (3) reinforcement of preoperative patient expectations of DBS. We are currently evaluating at what time post DBS procedure patients are requesting unscheduled phone information.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/efficacy-of-deep-brain-stimulation-dbs-patient-education-and-post-operative-support-a-summary-of-3-months-monitoring-of-unscheduled-patient-phone-requests-an-australian-private-neurology-clinic-ex/