Posts about neurology from 2 of our recent medical students

 

Posted by Ilya Grinberg:

Last week I participated in the MDA clinic and there was one patient who really stuck out in my mind. He was a 17 year old male who had Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. He was completely wheelchair-bound and could barely move any of his extremities. This obviously meant that he was completely reliant on people to take care of him and that he could not participate in the day to day activities that a normal person could. He was also starting to have breathing difficulty and probably would need to start therapy on a ventilator soon too.

DMD is an x-linked recessive disorder that affects boys from an early age. It affects 1 out of 3600 boys so it is not too uncommon. The disease is due to a mutation of the structural protein Dystrophin which is normally found in all muscles. The protein is found on the X chromosome which explains why it is an X-linked disease. Patients are usually born normally but will start gradually developing symptoms during the first few years of life. The first observations are usually progressive muscle weakness in proximal muscles in addition to muscle atrophy. One of the key clinical signs in DMD is calf psuedohypertrophy which occurs due to fibrosis of the necrotic muscle tissue. Another common finding that presents early on is Gower’s sign, where the patient uses his arms to stand up due to weakness in the proximal leg muscles.

Click here to find out more about DMD.

 

Posted by John Soliman:

What is Neurology one may ask? Prior to and during medical school I feel like the exposure to the study of neurology was very limited. Interaction between neurological patients and medical professions was far and few between. I have had little encounters with the realm that lies ahead. Prior to starting the clerkship I was very intimidated due to my lack of knowledge and ignorance. I can say jokingly I barely knew how to spell Neurology. Even the basics of neurology such as anatomy was daunting usually getting hung up on learning one part or area as seen in this video. I have to say I had something in common with Pinky.

After the 4 weeks of neurology I have realized that neurology covers a broad realm of knowledge and information on the central and peripheral nervous system.

During my clerkship I was lucky enough to be exposed to many patients encountering a lot of this medical conditions and problems. I was able to identify and correlate symptoms with disease states and vice versa.

The most memorable experience was the MDA clinic. I was able to meet and was integrated into the care of a lot of the Myotonic dystrophy patients. I was able to see hear their day to day life experience, talk to their care givers and be able to help with their care. After seeing patients like this it really brought “problems” Into perspective. The amazing thing was the broad range of how these medical conditions affect each individual differently.

I had the opportunity to see two brothers who are both affected with Myotonic Dystrophy. One brother can walk, talk and act normal with minimal weakness while the other was wheel chair bound. Talking to them brought home how a muscular dystrophy can affect the lives of affected individuals. Myotonic dystrophy is an autosomal dominant genetic process which means it can affect 50% of the carriers offspring. This may affect a family’s decision on having kids both mentally and psychologically. In this specific case, one of the brothers and his wife decided to adopt children due to the high risk of having a child with myotonic dystrophy. Dealing with something like this is a full time job on its own so it can be draining mentally, physically and financially on families.

Overall the experience has been great as I have gotten to see patients with medical conditions that I may not be able to see again. This clerkship has been knowledgeable and I has encountered a broad real of neurology that I never had experienced in the past.

Click here to find out more about Myotonic Dystrophy.

Click here to find out more about MDA Clinic at Monmouth.

The Anatomy of a Medical Mistake

On March 6 1987 the unthinkable happened. The roll-on roll-off passenger ferry The Herald of Free Enterprise left the Belgian port of Zeebrugge with it’s bow doors open, and capsized within moments, killing 193 passengers and crew:

The immediate cause of the sinking was found to be negligence by the assistant boatswain, asleep in his cabin when he should have closed the bow-door.

But the official inquiry placed more blame on his supervisors and a general culture of poor communication in the ferry company P&O European Ferries. The first officer was required to stay on deck to make sure the doors were closed, but apparently left the deck with the bow doors still open in the expectation that the assistant boatswain would arrive shortly. The boatswain, who is believed to have been the last person on the deck before the disaster was later asked why he did not close the doors given there was no one else there to do it.  He said it was “not his duty”.  Finally, the captain assumed that the doors had been closed when he set sail – he could not see them from the wheelhouse owing to the ship’s design and the fact that the shipping company had previously decided not to retrofit an indicator light in the wheelhouse.

Serious medical errors often occur under similar circumstances, including flawed or violated safety protocols and failure of communication.

For example, there were three instances of wrong side brain surgery at the Rhode Island Hospital in 2007. One time an experienced brain surgeon insisted to a nurse he knew what side of the head to operate on — but got it wrong.  Another time, a resident cut into the wrong side of a patient’s head after skipping a pre-op checklist.  In the third case, the chief resident started brain surgery in the wrong place, and the nurse didn’t stop him.

These errors happened despite required operating-room precautions adopted by the medical profession a few years ago to prevent such “wrong-site surgery” mistakes, including checklists, “time-outs” to double-check everything is correct, and indelible markers to show the surgeon where to cut.

These mistakes at Rhode Island Hospital suggest that such precautions can still be thwarted by the human element — ego and overconfidence on the part of surgeons, and timidity on the part of nurses too afraid to speak up when they see something about to go wrong.

Ongoing efforts to improve patient safety include: The use of information technology, such as hand-held bedside computers, to eliminate reliance on handwriting for ordering medications and other treatment needs. Avoiding similar-sounding and look-alike names and packages of medication. The standardization of treatment policies and protocols to avoid confusion and reliance on memory, which is known to be fallible and responsible for many errors.

However, the most important patient safety step is adopting a culture of patient safety at the hospital.

All staff must be encouraged to speak up if they identify a problem or mistake.

If the boatswain or first officer had simply flicked the switch to close the doors, or notified the captain they were still open, disaster could have been avoided on March 6, 1987.

George Huntington, On Chorea

George Huntington (1850-1916) was a medical practitioner in Dutchess County New York.

His father and grandfather had both been doctors, and his family had lived on Long Island since 1797.

He gave his classic presentation, “On Chorea”, at the Meiga and Mason Academy of Medicine in Middleport Ohio in 1972, and this was subsequently published in the Medical and Surgical Reporter of Philadelphia on April 13, 1872.

This took place just one year after he graduated from his medical training at Columbia University.

He later explained his interest in the condition that now bears his name:

Over 50 years ago, in riding with my father on his rounds, I saw my first case of the “disorder”, which is the way the natives always referred to the dreaded disease.  I recall it as vividly as though it had just occurred but yesterday.  It made a most enduring impression on my boyish mind, an impression which was the very first impulse to my choosing chorea as my virgin contribution to the medical lore.  Driving with my father through a wooded road leading from East Hampton to Amagansett we suddenly came upon two women both bowing, twisting, grimacing.  I stared in wonderment, almost in fear.  What could it mean?  My father paused to speak with them and we passed on.  Then my Gamaliel-like instruction began; my medical instruction had its inception.  From this point on my interest in the disease has never wholly ceased.

Huntington’s disease (HD) is now know to be caused by a genetic mutation.  It is inherited in an autosomal dominant fashion, so that any child of an affected person typically has a 50% chance of inheriting the disease.  The mutation is a triplet repeat, so the genetics of HD lead to anticipation, a phenomenon whereby the disease may begin earlier and more severely in each successive generation.

HD can present at any age, but most often begins around 35-44 years with psychiatric disturbance such as depression or forgetfulness.  Neurological manifestations such as unsteady gait and the  jerky body movements (chorea) noted by George Huntington come later, followed by a progressive dementia.

Genetic testing is available, but pre-symptomatic testing for family members, who are at increased risk for the disease, is controversial since there is no treatment for HD.

Find out more about HD from the Huntington’s Disease Society of America.

The winners of the American Brain Foundation’s 2014 Neuro Film Festival

 

Stroke Education For EMS

Music Improves Parkinson’s Gait

Post prepared by Quoc-Sy Kinh Nguyen Drexel University College of Medicine Class of 2014

Parkinson’s disease is a progressive, neurodegenerative disorder that affects 1% of people over the age of 60.
It is a clinical diagnosis that requires 2 out of 3 of the following signs: resting tremors, rigidity, and bradykinesia.
Although there is no cure, there are certain medications that can slow down the process: Levodopa is currently the most effective medical treatment for Parkinson’s, but long-term use can lead to levodopa-induced dyskinesias (LID), which include chorea, athetosis, and dystonia. This condition is difficult to treat and significantly affects a patient’s quality of life.

Fortunately, once LID has developed, lowering the dosage of levodopa may help. Medications such as amantadine and atypical neuroleptics can also be used to alleviate the symptoms of LID. Though a bit more invasive, deep brain stimulation is another alternative.

Ultimately, LID is caused by chronic levodopa therapy. Therefore, if one can avoid its use or lower the dosage of levodopa while still treating symptoms of Parkinson’s, then this whole ordeal can be circumvented. To avoid developing LID, one can initially take dopamine agonists such as pramipexole to delay the need for levodopa. As the disease progresses, dopamine agonists become less effective, and levodopa must then be introduced. Once it is introduced, taking levodopa at a lower dosage may decrease the risk of developing LID. In practical terms, one must lower the threshold to symptomatic relief of Parkinson’s by levodopa.

In the pilot study “Ambulosono: A Sensorimotor Contingency-Based Musical Walking Program For People Living With Parkinson’s Disease,” researchers aimed to do just that.

They used the accelerometer of the fourth-generation iPod to monitor differences in stride length among Parkinson’s patients tied to a music program.

The patients were told to do long-distance, large-stride walking every day, with the iPod strapped in a pouch above the patients’ knees, connected by wireless headphones. It was set up to have continuous music playback when a certain stride length was reached. The music playlist consisted of musical cues that have reported effectiveness in activating the limbic and other associated motor networks.

The researchers followed 42 patients with Parkinson’s over a period of 320 days with a cumulative walking distance of 3500 km and 700 hours of music playback. They found significant improvements in stride length (10–30%) and walking speed (10–20%), as well as improvements in other functional areas, like arm swinging, facial expression, long-term fear and anxiety of using escalators, and activity avoidance resulting from depression and anxiety.

This novel approach of employing current accessible technology in the functional improvement of Parkinson’s disease reduces the burden linked to taking levodopa. While this is a small study and further investigations are still needed, it provides a different perspective of Parkinson’s treatment that has the potential to greatly improve patients’ quality of life by decreasing exposure to medications and their many side effects.

Recent study links marijuana use to structural brain changes

 

 

Post  prepared by Amanda Baker, Drexel University College of Medicine Class of 2014

 

A study recently published in the Journal of Neuroscience by Harvard researchers have linked casual marijuana use to structural changes in distinct areas of the brain.

These areas, the nucleus accumbens and amygdala, and are largely involved in recognition of reward, motivation, fear, and memory.  In this study, the brain scans of 20 young adult casual marijuana users were compared to those of 20 young adult non-users.

While the results clearly demonstrated significant structural differences between the two groups, the structural changes have not been correlated with consequences in mental or physical functioning.  In other words, researchers aren’t entirely sure of the impact of these brain changes.

 

The debate regarding the use of marijuana medically and recreationally is ongoing in the United States.

Although the Drug Enforcement Administration(DEA) categorizes this drug as Schedule I, “with currently no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse”, many argue that there is, in fact, much benefit to medical marijuana, especially in comparison to other sedating pain medications.

This is reflected in 21 state laws which have legalized medical marijuana to varying degrees.

Last summer, Dr. Sanjay Gupta completed a documentary “Weed” highlighting the benefit of medical marijuana:

However, some states such as Washington and Colorado, have gone one step further by legalizing marijuana for both recreational and medical use.

Given the ongoing research on the effects of marijuana, perhaps this new study will call into question continued legalization of the most widely used recreational drug in America.

 

Click here to find out more.

 

Monmouth Neuroscience at the 2014 NJ Stroke Conference

We are happy to report that Monmouth’s stoke program was well represented at the 2014 New Jersey Stroke Conference earlier this month.

Two department of medicine residents, Drs Amor and Chan, presented our TIA center data in the poster session:

Dr Holland gave a talk on the role of telemedicine in stroke rehabilitation.

Gamma knife tremor patient comes back to get the other side done!

Our first tremor patient treated with gamma knife radiosurgery recently came back, one year later, to have the other side treated.
He has essential tremor, which was affecting both arms.
He had undergone treatment to the left brain for right sided tremor last year.
He was so pleased with his results, he recently came to have the right brain treated to address the left sided tremor.
Here is his most recent video.
Note the action and postural tremor on the left (untreated) side, and the fact that he has almost not residual tremor on the right (treated) side.

Click here to find out more about Gamma knife radiosurgery for tremor at the Monmouth Neuroscience Institute.

Playing it Safe: Concussion and Cardiac Screening for Young Athletes