Fred van Ross, 71, has been living with Parkinson's for more than a decade.
His experiences with the debilitating disease, which affects the central nervous system, may soon be in the past after an unnamed Australian man became the first person to undergo a clinical trial where stem cells were injected into his brain.
Medical experts at The Royal Melbourne Hospital conducted the five-hour procedure.
The unique treatment uses neural stem cells, derived by a US laboratory from an unfertilised egg.
The cells are implanted into areas of the brain affected by the disease.
"I take the positive approach and don't think about Parkinson's, and take my medication, which is important," Mr van Ross, who has not undergone the procedure, told SBS.
"I've learnt the hard way to take it when it's due. If I don't, I end up suffering."
Neurologist Andrew Evans said the hope was to regenerate the hormone dopamine, which is lost with the disease.
"When you get a loss of the chemical transmitter dopamine, you can see a problem with stiffness, slowness of movement and tremor and this comes about as a result of the reduction of dopamine levels in the brain," he said.
Hospital neurosurgeon Dr Girish Nair performed the surgery.
He noted how critical accurate precision was when injecting stem cells into the brain.
"If you get it wrong, you cause a bleed or get into the wrong spot you can cause a stroke, and your patient can die," he said.
"So that is what we were dealing with."
The stem cells were inserted through two holes in the man's skull, targeting 14 sites on the brain - seven on each side.
Each injection had to be spaced four minutes apart.
A three-dimensional model of the patient's skull was critical in planning the surgery.
"We did three or four dummy runs, and full dummy runs as in from the time the patient comes in to theatre to doing the procedure, getting the stem cell to the lab, so that the whole team knew what each person’s job was," Dr Nair said.
As with the 12 patients in the trial, the man will be closely monitored post-surgery to evaluate the safety and effects of the cells.
"We'll be doing dopamine scans, special research scans at baseline, and after a year, to assess the level of dopamine before and after," Dr Evans said.
With the transplant of stem cells in the remaining 11 patients to be completed in 2017, and the results to be known in 2019, this surgery is offering hope to the approximately 80,000 Australians living with Parkinson's disease.
Mr van Ross was keen to see what the future holds for fellow Parkinson's patients.
"Well, it might be too late for me but there's always hope, certainly live with hope," he said.
"Quality of life's important to me."
