April 12, 2016
Frank Cahouet met many challenges in his banking career, including the turnaround of Mellon Financial Corp. nearly three decades ago, but none of them helped prepare the former CEO for the Parkinson’s disease diagnosis he received in his early 80s.
Mr. Cahouet, now 83, left his doctor’s office with a prescription for medicine, counsel to begin physical and speech therapy, and a slew of questions about what lay ahead. Already dealing with hand trembling and other muscle contractions from the disease, he was overwhelmed in a way uncharacteristic for a man who had been one of the region’s top business executives.
“You know you’ve got it, but you don’t know what to do,” the Sewickley Heights resident recalled. “You’ve got to have somebody to talk to, and this isn’t a five-minute conversation. You’ve got to have a feeling there’s a team around you.”
With his own experiences in mind, Mr. Cahouet donated funds to Allegheny Health Network that enabled its recent creation of the Cahouet Center for Comprehensive Parkinson’s Care in Bellevue, which attempts to streamline services and information for patients. The center is housed on the third floor of a building that was already owned by AHN at 575 Lincoln Ave.
AHN neurologist and Parkinson’s specialist Timothy Leichliter has begun seeing patients there each Thursday to supplement his existing practices at Allegheny General Hospital and in Pine. The benefit of the new center, Dr. Leich-liter said, is that speech and physical therapists will be present on the same day to evaluate patients, who normally would have to make separate appointments and visits to see therapists.
In addition, the Cahouet Parkinson’s center represents a collaboration by AHN with the Parkinson Foundation Western Pennsylvania, which recently moved into first-floor offices in the same building. Patients seen by Dr. Leichliter and the therapists will routinely be directed to the foundation’s office afterward to receive free personal counseling about the disease and information on support groups, exercise classes, educational seminars and therapists who practice close to patients’ homes.
“If you think about the way a patient deals with Parkinson’s, they’ve been used to coming to see me for 20 minutes every few months, and I say to take this medicine, to see a therapist, to do some exercise, and then they go home,” said Dr. Leichliter, noting that could all be daunting, especially to new patients. “Now they don’t have to go figure it all out on their own. We have a way here to give them more guidance on where to go and what to do.”
Parkinson’s frequently strikes people in their 60s, often affecting a patient’s movements and speech, contributing to depression and affecting health in other ways. At least 6,000 people in greater Pittsburgh are thought to have the disease, said David Von Hofen, the Western Pennsylvania foundation’s program director.
In addition to patients benefiting from the new proximity between clinicians and the foundation’s counseling staff, he said, Cahouet center funding will enable expansion of educational programs in the community for patients and caregivers.
As part of that effort, two free informational sessions about Parkinson’s research will be offered this week by Rachael Bulmer, associate director of advancement for the Michael J. Fox Foundation. She will speak at 6 p.m. today at AHN’s Wexford Health + Wellness Pavilion, 12311 Perry Highway, Pine, and at 2 p.m. Wednesday in Jefferson Hospital’s James Bibro Building, 565 Coal Valley Road, Jefferson Hills.
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