Tetiana Zaitseva was a nurse in Ukraine when she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and over time developed debilitating tremors that limited her ability to do most daily tasks.

When the war in Ukraine reached her neighborhood in Kyiv, Zaitseva fled to the U.S. for safety, along with her daughter, Anastasia Kolomeichuk, and her grandson. It was here that she learned she was eligible for a procedure called deep brain stimulation, or DBS.

“DBS is an operation that allows you to put wires in the brain and reprogram the circuit in the brain that’s not functioning correctly. The wires are then attached to extension cables that are attached to a generator that sits underneath the skin, usually in the chest,” explained Dr. Shabbar Danish, who chairs the department of neurosurgery at Hackensack Meridian Jersey Shore University Medical Center.

“It’s magical actually, for people having whatever disease is being treated. You turn this device on, it’s like the disease never happened,” Danish said.

“The beauty of the DBS and the reason we can get patients to decrease their medication significantly is because the DBS is always working. So when patients don’t have this device, they take their pills, goes into their stomach, the dopamine gets into their cells, their symptoms relax. Now you’ve got this device always stimulating the dopamine in the cell,” said Dana Dolce, network neuromodulation manager and acute care nurse practitioner at Hackensack Meridian Jersey Shore University Medical Center.

With her daughter’s encouragement, Zaitseva underwent the minimally invasive surgery required for DBS.

It’s been four months since Zaitseva had the life-changing surgery. Through an app on her phone that her medical team also has access to, she’s able to adjust the frequency on her device whenever her tremors increase. And today, she has a whole new lease on life.