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| Dr. David Park |
It's great to look for a cure for Parkinson’s Disease, says neuroscientist David Park, but his other research is on ways to help Eastern Ontario’s 8,000 patients today.
It will be the subject of a fundraising cycling event in Gatineau Park on June 19. Last year’s Lap the Gats event raised $84,000 for Parkinson’s research in Ottawa. Registration is now open at lapthegats.org.
The problem is that a patient with Parkinson’s may only be able to see a specialist once a year, because there aren’t enough doctors to see them more often, Park said.
But there’s a problem: the treatment for this disease requires a lot of “tweaking” over many years.
“It’s incredibly difficult because the disease is so complex,” he said. Beyond the obvious symptoms of loss of motor control, “there are so many other things: You can’t swallow, you have sleep disorders, you get depressed, you start getting personality changes, cognitive decline.
“And these are the ones that, if you talk to patients, really affect quality of life.”
Park’s group has set up the Integrated Parkinson’s Care Network, which offers a chance for patients to check in every few weeks, often by phone, and make adjustments to their treatment.
Today part of his research aims at evaluating this network, understanding how a team can help patients when a neurologist’s appointment isn’t available. For instance, they can help patients work out the best schedule for taking medication, “because 20 minutes can make a huge difference.”
The team offers links with other medical specialists (for instance in geriatrics, gastroenterology and psychiatry) as well as specialized nursing, physiotherapy, speech and swallowing therapy and sleep disorder treatment.
Since the network is new, it is handling only the most severe cases for now.
“Anecdotally, we have made dramatic changes” for patients, he said. But it takes a formal study to find out what works, and how it operates best.
Park notes that his team at the University of Ottawa and the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute are also involved in the much longer-term goal of finding a way to cure or prevent Parkinson’s.
Park is an avid cyclist, and decided several years ago that a cycling day in the Gatineau Hills would be both a social event and a fundraiser. Many of the participants have Parkinson’s disease.
http://health.einnews.com/article/325332196/rp-ZHwvk5TILqJGm
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