Dhaka man plays guitar while undergoing rare brain surgery

Bengaluru: It’s not uncommon for doctors to perform operations to music, but it’s not often that a patient plays the guitar while on the operating table. In a rare moment at a private hospital in the city, a man from Dhaka, Bangladesh, did just this, while undergoing a brain surgery recently.

While a team of doctors of the Bhagawan Mahaveer Jain Hospital performed a brain circuit surgery on him on May 17, 31-year-old computer engineer, Taskin Ibna Ali, who remained fully awake, played the guitar, not for pleasure, but to help the surgeons treat his neurological disorder ‘guitarist dystonia’ that aggravated every time he played the instrument.

Taskin first noticed the condition, which  left his fingers crippled, when he felt some discomfort in his left middle finger while playing the guitar and the symptom progressively worsened, affecting other fingers of his left hand as well. His ability to play the guitar fell by nearly 80 per cent,  and his career too began to be impacted.

Dr. Sanjiv CC, a movement disorders neurologist from the Jain Institute of Movement Disorders and Stereotactic Neurosurgery (JIOMSN) at Bhagwan Mahaveer Jain Hospital, who first evaluated him,  says Taskin’s was a rare disorder.

“The  musician’s dystonia is an uncommon disorder in India and affects around one  per cent of the musicians. It is very difficult to treat and surgery is one of the best options,” he explains, revealing that Taskin’s symptoms were very severe and involved all five fingers of his left hand. But fortunately, the surgery worked and the Dhaka man got back full use of four fingers and partial use of his third finger almost immediately. And with post-operative specialised neuro rehabilitation, the third finger too has also recovered 100 per cent , according to the doctor. Taskin is now retraining his brain to resume playing the guitar the way he did before the condition set in.