St Vincents Private Hospitals

A St Vincent’s Private Hospital patient has become the first person in Australia to have adaptive deep brain stimulation for Parkinson’s Disease.

Walter Grkovic, 61, has had the chronic, progressive neurodegenerative movement disorder for a decade, and experienced symptoms like tremors, rigidity, slowness and postural instability.

In November 2025, Walter, who worked for many years as an actor on stage and screen, had a surgical procedure that implants a "brain pacemaker" to send electrical pulses to specific brain regions to regulate abnormal signals and relieve symptoms. Now, he’s become the first person in Australia to undergo the equivalent of a “software upgrade” so the stimulator “adapts” to his brain waves, as opposed to being “on” 24 hours a day.

His treating doctor Joel Maamary says this means the device can adjust the electrical pulses it sends out based on what’s going on in Walter’s brain in real time. “Adaptive stimulation allows us to sense the abnormal signals within the brain and the device actually increases its own output in real time to provide therapy for that patient at that time. It’s been available in the US and Europe for the last 12 months and we’ve recently had approval to use it in our patients in Australia.”

For Walter, deep brain stimulation has been a gamechanger, giving him the ability to walk again. He says he’s excited to see the further benefits of having a device that adapts to his brain signals.

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