Objective: To understand whether the presence of a Bilingual Movement Disorder specialist increases access to Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) for an underserved patient population.

Background: Deep brain stimulation (DBS) has been approved for qualifying patients with movement disorders such as Parkinson Disease (PD) or Essential Tremor (ET). However, despite the known benefits, racial/ethnic disparities affect which US patients receive DBS utilization rate is significantly lower in Hispanic/Latino patients compared to non-Hispanic/Latino patients among Medicare beneficiaries. We conducted a retrospective medical record review of patients who have received DBS who are following with a Bilingual (English and Spanish-speaking) Movement Disorder Specialist to compare to the general Essex County New Jersey population.

Method: Retrospective chart review was completed to identify the age, sex, ethnicity (self-reported), primary language, and DBS indication (PD vs ET) for patients who received DBS and are being followed by a bilingual Movement Disorder Specialist at the Rutgers Health University Hospital in Newark, Essex County, New Jersey in 2020. Open-access data from the US Census Bureau (2020 5-year census data) of the Essex County population was accessed for descriptive comparison with the included DBS population.

Results: Twenty-seven patients, with mean age of 61.3 years old (range 50-88), were included in the study. Of the 27 patients, 18 were men and 9 were women; 24 have PD and 3 have ET. Twelve patients reported Spanish as their primary language (44.4%) or required a translator/fluent Spanish speaker for their appointments,12 patients reported English as their primary language (44.4%), and 3 patients reported other languages as primary (11%): Urdu, Portuguese, and Hindi. 48.1% (13/27) DBS patients self-identified as Hispanic/Latino, which is significantly higher (p<0.05) than the ratio of Hispanic population in Essex County (23.3%, 185,818/798,618).

Conclusion: In this single-center cohort, the percentage of Hispanic/Latino patients following up at Movement Disorders clinic after receiving DBS is higher than that of the same year Essex County census data. Having one bilingual Movement Disorders specialist in an ethnically diverse community may help promote post-DBS follow up in the local Hispanic/Latino patient population.

References: 1. Frassica, Michael, Drew S. Kern, Mitra Afshari, Allison T. Connolly, Chengyuan Wu, Nathan Rowland, Juan Ramirez-Castaneda, Mwiza Ushe, Claudia Salazar, and Xenos Mason. “Racial disparities in access to DBS: results of a real-world US claims data analysis.” Frontiers in Neurology 14 (2023): 1233684.
2. United States Census Bureau. (https://www.census.gov/acs/www/data/data-tables-and-tools/data-profiles/) Accessed on March 4, 2024.

« Back to 2024 International Congress

MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/increasing-access-to-deep-brain-stimulation-for-an-underserved-patient-population-a-retrospective-cohort-from-an-urban-hospital-in-a-diverse-county-in-the-usa/