Jackie Todd spent more than four decades knowing what it was like to live with tremors before he ever knew what it was like to live without them. Now, after two rounds of an incision-free brain procedure at a Nashville medical center, he says simple things like eating a meal in public no longer come with an audience.
Todd's dominant right side was treated about nine months before he returned to Vanderbilt University Medical Center recently for a second round of focused ultrasound, this time on his left side, according to NewsChannel 5. The outlet reports that Vanderbilt uses the procedure to help patients with tremors by guiding MRI imaging to direct sound waves at a specific part of the brain responsible for the shaking, with no incision required.
How the Procedure Works
Before his most recent treatment, Todd completed a spiral-tracing test, the station reports, a baseline exercise meant to capture how severe his tremor was heading into the session. Preparation also included a numbing agent and the fitting of a headframe designed to keep his head still during the MRI, per the same account.
Treatment itself is delivered through what's called a sonication inside the MRI scanner. Dr. Dario Englot, part of the Vanderbilt team providing the therapy, described the rhythm of the procedure: deliver a sonication, then test your tremor, make sure we're getting good benefits, make sure we're not getting any side effects. Because patients remain awake throughout, the station notes, they can communicate directly with the medical team as the treatment unfolds — a feedback loop that lets clinicians adjust in real time.
Todd's Progress, and Its Limits
The station reports Todd showed visible improvement almost immediately after the left-side treatment. In his own telling, though, the results weren't identical to what he experienced on his right side: I noticed a lot of difference but not as much as it was on my right side, he said, according to the outlet's reporting.
Englot was careful to frame expectations. Focused ultrasound is not a cure, he said; the goal is to substantially reduce their tremor and improve their quality of life. Vanderbilt's own patient materials echo that modesty about outcomes, noting that Vanderbilt University Medical Center considers the outpatient procedure one where people typically return home the same day, though some patients may experience mild side effects including imbalance, numbness, headache and dizziness.
A Life Reopened
For Todd, the practical change has been enough to reshape his daily routine. I can go into restaurants and eat without people staring at me and pointing, he said, adding that the treatment has changed his life. I've just become a homebody, never done anything, he said. And they're giving me a chance of a regular life now because of this.
The scale of who else might benefit remains murky, with estimates varying by source. A Vanderbilt Medical Center article put the number of Americans with essential tremor at an estimated 7 million, while a 2026 report from TPR cited a figure of up to 10 million adults. The same Vanderbilt article separately noted that nearly 1 million people in the U.S. suffer from Parkinson's disease, a condition for which focused ultrasound is also used.
What Clinical Data Shows
The treatment's track record comes partly from a randomized, sham-controlled trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine that analyzed 76 patients with moderate-to-severe essential tremor who hadn't responded to at least two prior medication trials. At three months, hand-tremor scores improved more in the group that received focused ultrasound thalamotomy than in the sham group, with a between-group difference of 8.3 points. That improvement held up at 12 months, with a 7.2-point change from baseline.
The same trial found real tradeoffs: gait disturbance occurred in 36% of the thalamotomy group and paresthesias or numbness in 38%, though those effects had eased for most patients by the one-year mark, persisting in just 9% and 14%, respectively. A neurosurgeon at UT Health San Antonio, which also offers the MRI-guided procedure, told TPR that standard medications simply don't control symptoms in about half the people who use them — part of why focused ultrasound has drawn interest as an alternative for patients who've run out of options.
