How Rebecca Crews Decided To Try Focused Ultrasound

Focused ultrasound really started making a sound in Rebecca’s life last July, when the actor, singer and business owner was kind of the opposite of “cruising” with her PD. The symptoms and struggle with the disease that she had been diagnosed with in 2015 had her feeling particularly down. “For three nights in a row, I hardly slept, and I was fit to be tied,” the now 60-year-old Rebecca recalled. “I was so exhausted, and I was sitting by my bed like, ‘God, you gotta help me.’”

That’s when her husband Terry, an actor, former NFL football player and the current host of the TV show America’s Got Talent, came in and said, “Honey, I want to show you something.” At first Rebecca didn’t want to be bothered. “I was like, 'Don’t bother me right now, please. I’m talking to God about my problem.” But Terry insisted that she see a social media post from the Michael J. Fox Foundation about bilateral focused ultrasound just being approved to treat PD.

“He said, ‘Don’t miss your boat,’” Rebecca said. “We have a funny story we tell in the Christian community about a guy who’s in a flood. And he’s standing on top of his house asking God to save him. And someone comes by with a boat and he says, ‘No, I’m waiting for God.’ And then someone comes by in a helicopter and he says, ’No I’m waiting for God.’ And then he dies and asks God, ‘What happened?’ God then responded, ‘I sent you a boat and a helicopter. What else do you want?’”

Terry’s a boat face, so to speak, then prompted Rebecca to look into focused ultrasound and then ask her doctor for a referral for the treatment. That didn’t mean that Rebecca was completely sure about getting the treatment, just yet. Rebecca went back to what then happened: “We went to speak at this big conference for young people in Germany, and on the way there, I watched Back to the Future. And then I watched half of Back to the Future Part II. And then on the way back I watched the 2nd half and watched Part III.” Watching those three movies starring Michael J. Fox, who started the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research after his diagnosis with PD at age 29, and reading her scriptures helped her decide that focused ultrasound would be a sound way to go. She was committed to moving forward.

What Is Focused Ultrasound

Now, you may have heard of ultrasound in a more diffuse way. Ultrasound imaging, otherwise known as sonography, is when you use high-frequency sound waves to generate real-time images of things inside the body such as organs, tissues and blood flow. A little more intense versions of such sound waves have long been employed to treat musculoskeletal injuries and pain by heating tissues in ways that may increase blood flow, reduce swelling and promoting tissue healing. Even more intense ultrasound has also been used to break apart kidney stones and tumors.

Well, focused ultrasound specifically for PD is when you converge and intensify sound waves on to a particular area of diseased tissue in the brain to heat it up and destroy it. During the procedure, magnetic resonance imaging helps guide where the focused sound waves are pointed and ultimately go. I’ve covered in Forbes in 2018 and again in 2025 about how about Parkinson’s Disease results from the ongoing damage of dopamine-producing neurons in the brain’s substantia nigra, leading to worsening movement, coordination and balance problems.

Destroying such PD-affected tissue won’t cure PD. There’s currently no cure for PD, which is a progressive, chronic neurodegenerative disorder. However, destroying the diseased tissue could improve symptoms, such as problems with balance, and movement, for at least a while.

The US Food and Drug Administration had initially approved Insightec’s Exablate Neuro focused ultrasound device to treat tremor-dominant PD back in December 2018. The FDA then expanded that approval in November 2021 to include those with mobility, rigidity, or dyskinesia symptoms. At the time, the treatment was to be used for only one side of the brain. But that all changed in July 2025, when the FDA basically went both sides now—further expanding its approval so that patients who have had focused ultrasound treatment to one side of their brains could then undergo treatment on their second sides at least six months later. In other words, patients can now undergo what’s called staged bilateral treatment.

Rebecca Crews Described Her Experience With Focused Ultrasound

Going through focused ultrasound does typically entail wearing a helmet-like device equipped to guide the waves and a frame keep your head still. Oh, and it involves staying in the fairly narrow MRI tube, which can be tough especially if you are claustrophobic. “I was concerned about going in that MRI because some of them are very tight,” Recbecca related. “So I asked the doctor, ‘Is there any way you can sedate me a little?’ And they found something they could give me that wouldn't affect my symptoms. It would just calm me a little.”

She went on to describe what happened with the procedure: “They shave your head, you’re wide awake when they do all this. You have to be pretty committed to have it done because you have to be calm enough to lay in the machine while they’re doing all the zapping and all.” The zapping, though, apparently wasn’t too bad. “I didn’t have any pain,” she recalled. “It was the slightest, teeniest, feeling like I did a backflip. But it was very, very mild, not like vertigo.”

Speaking of backflip, the procedure did flip some of her PD symptoms rather quickly. “When they brought me out, my hand was not shaking, my right hand was calm,” she said. “Then in recovery, I noticed that I can write my name. I had not been able to write in a long time.” That’s not all. “When I was at the hospital the day after, I stepped on my leg to put my pants on, and I was able to balance, like stand on my right foot. I was like, my God, I haven’t been able to stand on one leg for probably three, four years.” She spoke of being able to use her phone again as well.

Speaking of phone, the results of this treatment to one side of the brain helped her make the call to go for the other side in September. “I feel a little bit like I’m a pioneer, one of the first 100 people,” she said and also sounded off on the fact that while focused ultrasound is not a cure for PD, it could open up further future possibilities. “So I’m excited for what it means. I chose it over DBS [deep brain stimulation] because to me, focused ultrasound is the frontier of a cure. DBS alleviates symptoms, but with focused ultrasound, they’re investigating how to put stem cells and other things in the brain, so to me, this is more the frontier.”

So, Rebecca is now on the focused ultrasound boat and looking forward to see what coasts it takes her. Speaking of coasts, she and her husband of 37 years are continuing their busy, bi-coastal schedules, going back and forth between New York City and Los Angeles. For example, she told me about how her Rebecca Crews fashion line with clothing, shoes, cosmetics and handbags has a store in Pasadena, California: “We have been open since 2020 and have had over 150 places with celebrities wearing the clothes.” Living with PD has certainly been a struggle but you could say that she now has a more focused approach going forward.