Last updated: 24.12.2023, 04:00 a.m.
By: Verena Möckl
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Unimaginable before his treatment: Since Karlsfelder fell ill with Parkinson's ten years ago, he has struggled with the little things in life. This year, he has given himself a wonderful gift: he can master his everyday life independently again. © Have
Karl Walter has Parkinson's disease. But the 80-year-old is not giving up. He takes the risk, takes part in a newly developed therapy and experiences a miracle.
Karlsfeld – Karl Walter experienced a miracle this year. For the first time in many years, the 80-year-old can bake cookies without having to worry about kneading the dough. For the first time in many years, he can light the candles on his Advent wreath without fear that the branches will catch fire. For the first time in many years, he can enjoy Christmas dinner without spilling on the festively decorated table. "I can live my everyday life again," he says happily.
Self-confident and overjoyed, Karl Walter lights the candles on his Advent wreath with a match. ©
Parkinson's diagnosis: Karl Walter struggles with the little things of everyday life
For a long time, this was unthinkable. Karl Walter's right hand trembled constantly. Steadfast. And so much so that sometimes his whole body shook as if an invisible hand were shaking him. Karlsfelder has Parkinson's disease. The tremor, also known as tremor, is a typical side effect.
But since this year, the pensioner has been experiencing something he could only dream of for many years. He has broken out of the cage in which his illness confined him. "I'm a free person again," he says.
For ten years, Karl Walter, who is right-handed, struggled with the little things of everyday life that most people take for granted. Lace up your shoes, tie your tie, button your shirts. Five years after his diagnosis, Karl Walter developed resistance to therapy. "The tremor worsened dramatically," recalls Karl Walter. "It was getting harder and harder for me to live a normal life."
A ray of hope for Parkinson's patients
But Karl Walter is a fighter. In 2018, he founded the self-help group Parkinson-Treff-Karlsfeld-Dachau, and since then he has been giving many lectures, networking, and continuing his education. He worked intensively on possible treatment methods to alleviate tremor tremors.
In the process, he came across something that gave him hope: MRgFUS therapy. This is a new technology that allows surgery to be performed without brain surgery (see box). Despite certain risks, Karl Walter decides to have the treatment, which is still little established in Germany, carried out.
MRgFUS Therapy: Hope for Older People with Parkinson's Tremor
Magnetic resonance (MR)-guided highly focused ultrasound subthalamotomy (MRgFUS) is a newly developed procedure to treat Parkinson's tremor.
It is considered effective and low-risk and is completed after one session. Bundled ultrasound waves are focused on a target point deep in the brain under MRI guidance. The sound energy is converted into thermal energy and shuts down damaged brain cells that cause the tremors.
So far, the procedure has only been approved for the treatment of a tremor site. The treatment is approved in Europe. According to the German Brain Foundation, it is an "experimental therapy". So far, there are two clinics in Germany that perform your procedure: The University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein in Kiel and the University Hospital Bonn. The treatment can also be used in elderly patients. Vm
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Before Karl Walter experiences a miracle, he has to endure 30 painful seconds
Three-quarters of a year later, Karl Walter can still remember the moment in March that completely changed his life.
His new life begins for him in a blue surgical gown and with a clean-shaven head. He is undergoing an MRI at the University Hospital in Kiel. On his head he wears a crown of rays. Ultrasound waves shoot into his brain. Again and again the doctors push him out of the tube. He has to solve arithmetic and thinking problems, do motor skills exercises. Then he comes back to the MRI. Six times it goes like this. For two hours.
Before the last lesson, the doctors warn him. "They said that the last procedure was painful. And that they would have done the best they could," says Karl Walter.
When he is pushed into the MRI for the last time, his heart is pounding. He hears a shrill beeping, feels a hot, oppressive pain. "I thought my skull was going to rip apart." But he's not afraid, he's not worried, he says. "I said to myself, you're going to get through this!" 30 agonizing seconds that are all his hope for a better life.
Hope for a better life with Parkinson's
When the neurologists push him out of the MRI, he immediately notices that something is different: the silence in his body. His right hand, which had been trembling incessantly for ten years, suddenly lies quietly next to his body. "I could have cried," he says today, his voice cracking. "When the pain subsided, I could have taken off. I felt like I was a new person."
It feels like walking into a sunrise.
Karl Walter
When Karl Walter talks about his new life, he seems very excited. "It feels like walking into a sunrise." The fact that he is still sick and his hand still flutters in some moments doesn't seem to bother him. He knows: Parkinson's is incurable, balance problems and movement disorders remain.
Hope and happiness: At the age of 80, a new life begins for him
But he also knows that he can now master his everyday life independently again. Writing letters, cooking – and making his life shine again, just like all the candles on his Advent wreath on Christmas Eve. "My life has a different quality now," he says. "There are phases when I think I'm not missing anything."
Karl Walter holds a jug in one hand and a porcelain cup in the other. "These are the subtleties that make up life," he says with a grin. Then he pours green tea into the cup. In a straight beam. Without wobbling. Without spilling.