Double blind, nonrandomized crossover study of active recharge biphasic deep brain stimulation for primary dystonia.

Background: Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the globus pallidus interna (GPi) is an effective therapy for select patients with primary dystonia. DBS programming for dystonia is often challenging due to variable time to symptomatic improvement or stimulation induced side effects (SISE) such as capsular or optic tract activation which can prolong device optimization.

Objective: To characterize the safety and tolerability of active recharge biphasic DBS (bDBS) in primary dystonia and to compare it to conventional clinical DBS (clinDBS).