Brandan Mehaffie didn’t know he was in the middle of a life-changing moment. At the time, he was trying to finish a triathlon, but something felt off. His legs weren’t moving the way they used to. It felt… uneven. “I felt like I was dragging the whole left side of my body, which, as it turns out, I was,” he remembers.
It took a few more symptoms—and a few more years—for the full picture to emerge. Tremors in his hand. Muscle cramps. Shoulder and wrist pain that never quite added up. When the official diagnosis came in 2016, Brandan was 40 years old.
“It was pretty much a gut punch,” Brandan says. “To find out you have a brain disorder that there’s no cure for—and it’s only gonna get worse—was pretty rough.” There’s no instruction manual for news like that—just questions, adjustments, and the slow realization that life has to change. And for that, Brandan needed more than a diagnosis. He needed a team.
Hope in Motion
By Monica Vanover on December 1, 2025
“The most rewarding part of my job has been the ability to take a child who has a very complex, sometimes fatal heart condition and repair it and meet that family and tell them that their kid is going to be alright."
Learn More About Dr. Myers
— Dr. Myers
John L. Myers, MD
Cardiothoracic Surgery, Pediatric and Congenital Heart Surgery, Thoracic Surgery
“This new technology allows for much more individualized treatment. It enhances an already effective therapy by offering new insights into an individual’s evolving symptoms, potentially reducing the need for manual adjustments.”
— Dr. Sol De Jesus
Learn More About Penn State Health Children's Hospital
When Caring Becomes a Team Sport
Parkinson’s disease affects movement, but its real disruption reaches far deeper. Daily routines get rewired. Medications stop doing what they used to. And nothing about it is simple.
“There is no one person who can comprehensively take care of everything a Parkinson’s patient needs,” says Dr. Jim McInerney, Neurosurgeon and Co-director of Penn State Health Deep Brain Stimulation Program at Penn State Health. “That’s why we do this as a team.”
Brandan’s turning point came when that team came into view. “Coming to Penn State Neurology was literally like hitting the Powerball,” he says. Brandan wasn’t just seeing one doctor—he was stepping into a coordinated system built for complex, evolving conditions like his.
“It involves a lot of people,” says Dr. Sol De Jesus, Neurosurgeon and Co-director of the Penn State Health Deep Brain Stimulation Program. “We have neurology and neurosurgery, neuropsychiatry, our therapists, our advanced care providers, our nurses: everybody is part of that team.”
It was within that network of care that Brandan first heard about deep brain stimulation (DBS)—and a newer, more adaptive version that could do more than hold the line.
Trusting Someone to Rewire Your World
DBS isn’t new. It’s been helping patients manage symptoms of Parkinson’s and essential tremor for decades. But adaptive DBS is the next generation—smarter, more responsive, and capable of learning from the very brain signals it’s trying to regulate.
“It’s a battery and a computer, implanted in the chest,” explains Dr. McInerney. “The goal is to get these wires—that are about the size of a piece of spaghetti—into very specific targets within the brain.” Once connected, the device delivers small electrical impulses that help regulate the misfiring signals behind tremors and other physical symptoms. The surgery is precise, mapped down to thousandths of a millimeter. But for the patient, it’s something else entirely.
“It’s a huge leap of trust to let somebody put a wire in your brain,” McInerney says. “If we don’t have that relationship, there’s no way we can get to that point.”
Brandan took the leap. Looking back, he has only one regret. “With the success I’ve had, I kind of wish I would’ve done it sooner.”
Not Just the Right Tools—The Right People
Brandan’s outcome was the result of something intricate—an ecosystem of precision and trust, where cutting-edge tools meet the kind of people who know how to use them in the real world.
Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center was the first in Pennsylvania—and one of only 23 hospitals nationwide—to offer BrainSense adaptive deep brain stimulation (aDBS), a system that doesn’t just deliver therapy, but listens back. It tracks brain activity in real time and adjusts automatically, smoothing out the noise of symptoms before patients even have to ask.
“Patients no longer have to wait for manual adjustments or worry about symptom fluctuations throughout the day,” says Dr. McInerney. “This is a major step forward for Parkinson’s treatment.”
“This new technology allows for much more individualized treatment,” adds Dr. De Jesus. “It enhances an already effective therapy by offering new insights into an individual’s evolving symptoms, potentially reducing the need for manual adjustments.”
The adaptive system is part of a broader commitment housed within the Penn State Neuroscience Institute, where research, education, and clinical care intersect. That infrastructure gave Brandan access not only to the latest tools but to a team prepared to evolve with him over time.
For Brandan, it meant getting his rhythm back—on and off the bike.
Staying Active, Staying Ahead
Brandan doesn’t just believe in staying active—he builds his days around it: “Movement is medicine,” he says. “There are lots of studies out there showing that your long-term prognosis improves the more active you are.” These days, he trains in Parkinson’s-specific boxing. Walks the dog. Takes family vacations. The man whose own body once fought against him now leads a spin class called Pedaling for Parkinson’s.
“I feel so blessed that I got an opportunity to teach spin again because it’s something that I love,” he says. “And if I can help my fellow Parkinson’s patients—it’s a win-win.”
He’s also found a role off the bike: education. As part of Penn State Health’s academic mission, Brandan helps train the next generation of medical professionals, offering insight that no textbook can.
“Our patients are our best advocates,” says Dr. De Jesus. “They help us educate. They help us build better care.”
Tomorrow’s Medicine Is Already Here
The future of DBS is already changing—faster, smarter, more personalized with every advancement. “Soon, these devices will be fully automated,” says Dr. McInerney. “They’ll know when someone is more symptomatic and respond on their own. That’s going to be game-changing.”
But even as the technology evolves, the philosophy behind it stays the same: treat the whole person, not just the symptoms. “When a patient comes to Penn State Health, they’re getting not just the clinical care,” says Dr. Sol De Jesus. “It spans a world that involves research and education and truly thinking about the person as a whole, and how we can improve their lives within the diagnosis.”
Brandan felt that difference every step of the way.
“Treating the person as a human being—with compassion and empathy—goes just as far as treating them with medication,” he says. Brandan isn’t waiting for the future of DBS. He’s already living it.
At Penn State Health, patients like Brandan are supported, informed, and empowered. Join a DBS education lunch or learn more about the team making these breakthroughs possible at PennStateHealth.org.
Co-director of the Penn State Health Deep Brain Stimulation Program
Learn More About Neurosurgery at Penn State Health
Learn More about Deep Brain Stimulation at Penn State Health
“Having a resource like Penn State College of Medicine means that everything that we do we’re focused on learning from - that’s how medicine grows. We build one step at a time.”
— Dr. Jim McInerney
Neurosurgeon and Co-director of Penn State Health Deep Brain Stimulation Program
“This new technology allows for much more individualized treatment. It enhances an already effective therapy by offering new insights into an individual’s evolving symptoms, potentially reducing the need for manual adjustments.”
— Dr. Sol De Jesus
Co-Director of the Penn State Health Deep Brain Stimulation Program