Mayo Clinic Researcher to Lead New Parkinson's Disease and Dementia Study Funded by Three-Year Grant

Monday, December 05, 2005

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The Arizona Biomedical Research Commission has awarded the Arizona Parkinson's Disease Center a three-year grant to study Parkinson's disease and dementia in Parkinson's disease. The Arizona Parkinson's Disease Center is a valley-wide consortium of investigators from Mayo Clinic, Sun Health Research Institute, Barrow Neurologic Institute, Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center, Arizona State University and the Translational Genomics Research Institute.

Charles H. Adler, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Neurology, Chair of the Mayo Foundation Division of Movement Disorders and principal investigator for the consortium says, "The goal of this grant is to expand the Arizona Parkinson Disease Center's work in developing tools to make an early diagnosis of Parkinson's disease, identify Parkinson's disease patients that may develop dementia, and to investigate how to prevent or slow the development of Parkinson's disease and Parkinson's disease with dementia."

Parkinson's disease affects approximately one million people in the U.S., and onset often begins in the late 50's or early 60's. It is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that is currently diagnosed by finding slowness of movement along with either rest tremor or rigidity. Usually thought of as a motor disorder, 30 to 75 percent of patients with Parkinson's disease also develop dementia. Current treatments to improve motor symptoms are available, such as medications and surgical procedures; however there are no treatments that slow or halt disease progression or prevent dementia in Parkinson's disease.

The study is being conducted using the Sun Health Research Institute Brain Donation Program. Those who sign up for the program have annual neurologic and memory tests and are followed until death, when their brains are donated for further study. Using the examination data, as well as the autopsy material, the researchers are investigating the early clues of disease onset and how they could potentially slow progression. Validating clinical findings through autopsy confirmation, the "gold standard" for diagnosing Parkinson's disease, researchers will study the brain tissue for clues on how to predict the likelihood of developing Parkinson's disease — or Parkinson's disease with dementia, with the goal of finding new avenues for treatment.

People who have Parkinson's disease and who may be interested in joining the Brain Donor Program are encouraged to contact either Linda Vedders, Clinical Coordinator at Sun Health Research Institute Brain Donation Program, (623) 875-6503 or Dr. Charles H. Adler, principal investigator, at Mayo Clinic, (480) 301-4626.

Mayo Clinic is a private group practice of medicine dedicated to providing diagnosis and treatment of patient illnesses through a systematic focus on individual patient needs. As a leading academic medical center in the Southwest, Mayo Clinic focuses on providing specialty and surgical care in more than 65 disciplines at its outpatient facility in north Scottsdale and at Mayo Clinic Hospital. The 208-licensed bed hospital is located at 56th Street and Mayo Boulevard (north of Bell Road) in northeast Phoenix, and provides inpatient care to support the medical and surgical specialties of the clinic, which is located at 134th Street and Shea Boulevard in Scottsdale.

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