Conference Coverage

Many complications can occur in hospitalized neurological patients from an internal medicine standpoint. So a session from the 2024 Academy of American Neurology (AAN) Annual Meeting focused on these common issues, how they can be addressed quickly, and the role of a neurohospitalist. Dive in further with Dr. Erick Tarula, Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

Stroke is one of the leading causes of death in pregnancy in the United States, underscoring the importance of knowing the causes, risks, and treatment of stroke in pregnancy and postpartum. That’s why Dr. Eliza Miller is here to share key insights from her session at the 2024 AAN Annual Meeting that focused on this exact topic. Dr. Miller is an Associate Professor of Neurology in the Division of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Disease at Columbia University.

Medical gaslighting refers to the situation where a medical professional disregards an individual's health concerns. It most often affects patients suffering from neurological disorders like long COVID and MS, and it can be extremely damaging to the physician-patient relationship. This underscores the importance of knowing how to recognize and reduce medical gaslighting in clinical practice, which is why Dr. Michele Longo is here to discuss the “Healing Doubt: Confronting and Overcoming Medical Gaslighting” session she presented at the 2024 AAN Annual Meeting.

Cognitive rehabilitation in patients with multiple sclerosis started about 20 to 25 years ago when it transitioned from predominantly patients with traumatic brain injury to other patient populations including multiple sclerosis. And over that period of time, the number of studies that have examined the efficacy of cognitive rehabilitation in MS has grown substantially. However, gaps remain and further research is needed. Dive into to learn more about cognitive rehabilitation trials for MS with Dr. Nancy Chiaravalloti, Director of the Center for Neuropsychology and Neuroscience Research and the Center for Traumatic Brain Injury Research at Kessler Foundation, who also presented a session on this topic at the ACTRIMS 2024 Forum.

Adaptive optics is a promising tool for studying MS-related changes in the retina at a cellular level, providing valuable insights into the disease's progression and potential treatments. Dive further into this line of research with Dr. Daniel Harrison, an Associate Professor of Neurology and the Director of the Division of Multiple Sclerosis and Neuroimmunology at the University of Maryland who presented this research at the 2024 ACTRIMS Forum.

Rehabilitation training for multiple sclerosis patients aims to improve mobility, cognitive function, and quality of life. But one of the largest barriers to having more high-quality randomized control trials of rehabilitation in MS is that most researchers could not be following a stage of different research approaches. So addressing the unmet needs in rehabilitation research is needed to make MS interventions more powerful. You’ll learn more in this episode with Dr. Robert Motl, Professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Nutrition with a secondary appointment in the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Illinois Chicago.

The amount of patients being diagnosed with neurological conditions and multiple sclerosis (MS) is a growing number, which causes a need for more neurologists, MS specialists, and better access to care. A potential advantage of using technology in MS care would be to break down the geographic barrier. To learn more about telehealth in MS care, tune in with Dr. Marisa McGinley, Assistant Professor of Neurology at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, who also presented this topic at the ACTRIMS Forum 2024.

Chronological age is the biggest early driver of disease progression in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). That’s why a team of researchers wanted to explore whether biomarkers like p16 and the epigenetic clock can be used to assess biological aging in patients with MS. They found that while patients with MS are aging faster than people without MS based on the epigenetic clock biomarker, no chronological age correlation in p16 expression has been identified in patients with MS. Dive further into these findings with Dr. Yinan Zhang, an Assistant Professor of Neurology at Ohio State University who presented this research at the 2024 ACTRIMS Forum.

A recent study sought to investigate why there are disparities in mortality as well as access and participation in clinical trials among vulnerable prostate cancer populations. According to the findings, counties in the United States that had the highest prostate cancer mortality were less likely to have any clinical trials in the area. Dive further into the results with Dr. Rishi Sekar, who presented the “Disparities in Prostate Cancer Mortality and Clinical Trial Availability Across Vulnerable Populations” session at the 2024 ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.

If hormonal therapies are not working for prostate cancer patients, chemotherapy may be a reliable alternative based on findings from a recent study. In fact, out of the 70 percent of patients who had pain when entering the study, 45 percent had their pain improved with chemotherapy. Dive more into the findings with Dr. Zachery Reichert, who presented the “Sequencing Hormonal Therapies After Treatment Intensification” session at the 2024 ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.