Parkinson Disease

Researchers discovered a strong correlation between cerebral small vessel diseases and motor symptoms in patients with Parkinson disease, according to a recent cross-sectional study.

During a session at AcademyHealth National Health Policy Conference held February 4-5 in Washington, DC, healthcare stakeholders discussed 3 innovations that are changing the way we think about healthcare: social determinants of health, digital health, and data.

The man for whom the right-to-try law is named has been unable to get treatment; neuroscientists who were once skeptics are now being persuaded by new studies that have turned up fascinating links between the microbiome and the brain; public health officials are worried it could take months to contain the measles outbreak due to a lower-than-normal vaccination rate in Clark County, Washington, the epicenter of the crisis.

Using multiple drugs to treat a single condition is growing, said Paul Zarkowski, MD, a clinical assistant professor at Harborview Medical Center and psychiatrist in Seattle, Washington, at Psych Congress 2018. But how much do we know about how well they work?

Researchers from the University of Utah explain that patients with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were more than twice as likely to develop early-onset Parkinson disease or a related basal ganglia and cerebellum disease than peers who do not have ADHD. Among patients with more severe disease who are prescribed stimulant medications to control their ADHD, the risk was 6- to 8-fold higher.

While funders and researchers have long held that clinical trials should enroll more diverse patients to better reflect the populations in which approved drugs will eventually be used, patient populations enrolled in clinical trials remain largely homogenous.

This article compares clinical and utilization profiles of Medicare patients who are attributed to provider groups with those of patients unattributed to any provider group in accountable care organization models.

One in every 4 drugs approved by the FDA over the past 4 years was a personalized medicine, and the agency approved a record-breaking 16 personalized therapies in the past year, according to a new report from the multi-stakeholder group the Personalized Medicine Coalition.

Analysis of randomized controlled trials finds there is not enough proof that wearable biosensors actually improve patient outcomes, such as weight and blood pressure, according to a study by Cedars-Sinai investigators published in npj Digital Medicine.

In a discovery that could potentially pave the way for more targeted treatments, researchers announced that dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) has a unique genetic profile, separate from those of Alzheimer disease or Parkinson disease (PD). Researchers also found that DLB has heritability traits similar to PD.

The progressive neurodegenerative diseases amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and Parkinson disease share the risk factors of increased age and male sex, but new research indicates there is also an association between a patient’s occupation and the mortality rate from these diseases.