The beat goes on, thanks to deep brain stimulation: Pat Bautz's story.

I started playing drums at the age of three. I was going to play. I dreamed about it since I was a little kid. To say that Pat Bautz has live that dream would be an understatement. Bautz has played the drum for such superstars as Mickey Gilly, Freddy Fender, Dave Mason, and Jeffrey Osborn for the last 30 years, he's been on the road with the band Three Dog Night. When you travel that much with the same group of guys, everybody knows what joke I'm going to say. I know what everybody's going to say, I know what they're going to laugh around. But the unexplained symptoms that Pat started to experience about seven years ago were no laughing matter. I first noticed that my right arm was kinda like a little shake some times it had some pain. Not terrible pain but enough that I noticed it. There was also stiffness in his arm, and foot. It was affecting his playing. I noticed it immediately. I couldn't get this hand to hit at the same time as this hand, I was constantly behind. After seeing several doctors, Pat was finally diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. Medications helped for awhile, but it worsened overtime to the point where I went from a single pill every 4 hours to four pills. That's when Pat went to Mayo Clinic to meet with Dr. Ryan Uitti to talk about deep brain stimulation or DBS. Deep brain stimulation is all about improving a patient's quality of life. And just like medications may dial in and help certain symptoms.

Deep brain stimulation can be a targeted electrical prescription for patients. During surgery, Dr. Uitti and his team placed electrodes into the brain. Those electrodes are connected to an implantable battery. When the power is turned on, the electrical current stimulates the brain circuits, improving symptoms. When we first started doing these operations in 1995, we did the same operation every time. Today, we never do that. We individualize the operation for each patient. And that has led us to using different targets. And sometimes we'll place one, two, three or even four electrodes in one person. The catch Pat had to be awake for the surgery. That way he could provide immediate feedback to make sure that the leads were in the most advantageous spot. In this case that feedback came from Pat's drumsticks. Less than three months after the surgery, Pat was back on stage with the band. I'm better than I was. And I will continue to get better. It does take a little getting used to all of a sudden now I'm starting to forget I even had it and that I know is a really good thing. For the Mayo Clinic News Network. I'm Joel Streed.